Morocco!!

April 13, 2007

First off, HAPPY 18TH BIRTHDAY BUB!!!

This is the Morocco blog update, and it will be long. Sorry, deal with it. :)

I went to Morocco for a week with a program called Discover Sevilla (check ‘em out online, it’s a really cool company) who takes mostly American students from Spain to some really cool places in the area, such as Morocco and Portugal. It was started 3 years ago by two 25 year old guys and now they’ve grown into a really, really impressive company. I was kind of skeptical on going on an organized trip with a big group of people, but now I realize that was the very best possible way for me to see Morocco in a week.

The first day we met the group at 4:45, drove to the southern-most tip of Spain, and took the ferry to Tangier. We then drove down to the capital of Morocco, Rabat. Along the way we stopped at some really cool beach towns and had lunch (the beginning of intestinal problems for everyone) and finally got to Rabat in the afternoon. We explored the oldest part of Rabat right on the coast now a little village with blue painted walls supposedly to keep mosquitoes away.

We visited some national monument-type buildings, and I really wish I knew something about Morocco to understand the significance of these famous landmarks. One of the buildings had the tombs of all Moroccan kings for hundreds of years, and it’s also a pilgrimage sight. We were there right about sunset, at around 6:00 loudspeakers around the city call out a prayer call, indicating time to pray for Muslims. So we’re in this pilgrimage site looking like idiots when everyone around us drops to their knees, faces Mecca, and begins to pray. It was really moving and awesome to see, but I felt like I was really invading something sacred, especially at a holy site. I later realized that not everyone follows the strict rules of prayer, but it just so happened that our first experience with prayer was at a Mosque, where everyone would be praying. Pretty interesting first cultural experience in an Islamic country, for sure.

Picture of the Morocco group, some of my friends from Barcelona that I traveled with… missing a few girls but this is the majority of us:

Our next stop was Fez, the religious and cultural capital of Morocco. Fez is, for the most part, a sprawling city just like you would expect in a developing country. The coolest part of the city is the medina, the city center surrounded by the ancient wall. Every big city has a medina, usually the market place with the oldest history. We had a Moroccan guide take us through the Medina, and the first thing he said to us was that tourists die every year getting run over by donkeys. Awesome. So we got to the medina, and it was pretty incredible. Fez has one of the biggest medinas rivaled only by Marrakech, which meant it had 9,800+ “streets” which were most like crowded walkways of vendors and stores. Unfortunately no pictures I took could capture how freaking awesome it was, mainly because in the coolest parts I didn’t really feel comfortable taking out my camera. I saw some pretty crazy things in there and the meat section made me eat vegetarian for the rest of the week. I’m beginning to think that if I can’t handle dead pig heads and seeing chickens get decapitated, I shouldn’t be eating meat. Anyway, we spent the full day roaming through rug stores, a pharmacy, a great restaurant, a gorgeous Mosque (we weren’t allowed in any religious building, but it was still beautiful from the outside), and many other cool places I wish could be explained in words. That night we saw a belly dancing and local music show, which was pretty bizarre but interesting.

Here’s a picture of the medina, although this pic doesn’t quite do it justice:

More or less the Rabat “skyline” within the walled medina, proof that Morocco definatley is a developing country.

Here’s the donkey that did not run me over:
Ok, next. On the third day we drove across a lot of Morocco, through some really beautiful towns, and over the Atlas mountains. We spent a lot of time in the bus, but it didn’t matter at all because the scenery was so spectacular. We went from coastal towns, to farmland, to hills, to massive snowy mountains, and ended the day in the Sahara desert. We parked the bus at a hotel in the desert, but then found out that we weren’t staying at this one, we had to 4-wheel through the desert to get to the place we were staying. Turns out there is a legitimate road from the first hotel to ours, but Moroccans believe in short cuts, aka driving over 50mph through the desert at night with only dim lights to lead the way, no signs, no idea how they knew where they were going, no idea how they didn’t hit a bush or animal or person. After a full hour of flying through the desert with a man who didn’t speak English or Spanish (there were 6 students in the car) he somehow was able to tell us we were lost, and maybe in Algeria (actually that part I heard a few days later). Finally we got to our hotel about an hour after everyone else, thanks to the fact that our guide somehow had cell phone service. Our hotel was in the middle of the Sahara surrounded by sand dunes in every direction. It was amazing.

More pics, first of the Atlas Mountains:

Excited to be in the desert hotel! (This might be a good time to point out to whoever is unaware that jumping pictures are a tradition with CCO folks and not some random obsession I have, it’s legit! I swear! And it takes more talent than normal pictures.)

So I have to backtrack a bit. On our way over the Atlas Mountains we made a rest stop at a place where there’s a lot of monkeys. At first I couldn’t figure out why there were so many monkeys in that particular location, and then I realized it was because people fed them. Very sad, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t excited to see some African monkeys!!

Here’s a picture of the baby monkey eating food some idiot gave him. People are ignorant about wildlife in every part of the world, it turns out. And no, it wasn’t the American college students feeding them:

Ok so back to the Sahara Desert. This was by far the highlight of my trip. The cities and towns were also very cool, but something about camping in the Sahara I know I won’t forget for the rest of my life. The first night in the desert hotel (I wish I could give a name or location, but “middle of nowhere” will have to suffice) we wandered into the desert after dark and explored the dunes. At first we thought we were more or less alone, aside from a few other groups of students exploring. Then we started running into a lot of locals, randomly walking through the desert. It was at first kind of creepy to turn the corner and see a lone man walking towards you in the middle of nowhere, in the dark, but we felt safe the entire time and everyone was really friendly and either wanted to chat or at least greeted us in Arabic and left us alone. We met one guy (I won’t try to remember his name, I’ll butcher it) who worked at our hotel and also took college classes in Fez. He spoke pretty good English, even better Spanish, and also spoke French, Arabic, local dialect, etc. We met a few more people wandering throughout the desert at night, and it turns out they use the night and the full moon to travel from work to home or vice versa, because when it’s daylight it’s just to damn hot to be walking through the desert.

Me on the dunes outside our hotel, at daylight, no doubt jumping for joy:

Most the people we met in Southern Morocco were Berber, the native tribe of people more of less untouched by the spread of Islam. They’re an indigenous group, and one of the only ones that hasn’t been completely absorbed by the greater Muslim culture in Northern Africa. One guy explained to me that they don’t really marry outside the Berber tribe, so the blood is more or less purely of their native group and not really diluted at all... for centuries and centuries they’ve kept to themselves. They speak Arabic in college (they are WELL educated, venture out of the desert for a college education, at least all that I met, which were all about my age) but maintain a pretty unique culture. Oh yea, and they are really good looking. Especially for deprived college girls.

Here’s a picture of my friend Maggie with a guy we met while in the desert, he spoke perfect English and was really friendly; he definitely wanted us to enjoy his home and wanted to teach us all about their culture.

Ok this entry is getting really long… stay with me, I’m almost done, I swear. So we woke up, day 4, and were able to get sufficiently sun burnt at the hotel pool. After lunch we packed up enough clothes for a night in the desert, and began our trek on camels. It’s of course an experience I’ll never forget, but camels are mean, painful, and slow. Four hours on a camel made me think horses were super cool, and I don’t really enjoy riding horses either. We rode camels through the Sahara to a “desert oasis”, aka the only patch of trees we saw amongst the dunes for miles. Within the trees there was a few big campsites set up for various groups (tourists, or local travelers) to have a place to rest on their journey across the desert. We made it to the oasis in the late afternoon, and then climbed a huge dune to see a spectacular sunset. We met a group of Berber men (never met or saw a Berber woman) who cooked us a great dinner. The rest of the night the group drank bad Moroccan wine and danced to drums in front of the campfire. We woke up in the morning and had to get back on the camels back to the hotel, which was the low point of the trip but only because the campout was so great.

Picture, my camel, resembling a prehistoric dinosaur and clearly an idiot:

Picture of me, totally covered (it was hot, but I didn’t want to get burned) on my camel through the desert.

The view form our campsite. The desert goes on forever there.

THE best part of the trip, climbing the dune to watch the most amazing sunset ever (out in the distance it’s a lake, it’s mirage). You can see people out on the right spread farther along the dunes:

Our campsite, the lone trees in the Sahara Desert. In the background you can see the first section of the dune we climbed.

After getting back to the hotel on the 5th night we spent a good part of the rest of the day traveling back to Fez. We spent an exhausted night in Fez, and traveled back across the Straight of Gibraltar to Sevilla, getting in about 1:00 am. One good (but rainy) stop on the way back to Sevilla was the little beach town of Asilah (spelling?) that I wish I could have spent some more time at.

Obviously pictures explain more than words alone, and I wish I could post some more spectacular pictures on here. So that was Morocco, you get a prize if you read to the end of this entry!!

I’ll be home in less than two weeks! Yippee!!!

Love and miss you all,
Laura

spring break, part 1

April 10, 2007

WOW.

I have no idea where to start. How about this: I just got back from a whirlwind spring break (here it’s called Semana Santa = Holy Week, because it always falls on Easter). I had so many incredible experiences in such a short period of time, and it still hasn’t sunk in that I was able to see so much cool stuff. Our trip was 12 days long and we covered a huge chunk of southern Spain, as well as a week in Morocco and a little tiny bit of Algeria on accident.

I started out by flying down to Sevilla (Seville, in English, weird) for a few days. Kate and I flew down on Thursday and four other girls in our group met us down there the following day. Sevilla is the main hub for Semana Santa celebrations so we wanted to be part of the hype. Spanish Catholics take Easter and all events surrounding it to a totally new level. I have never seen such extreme religious passion that encompasses an entire population. There were constant processions (literally 24 hours a day) for the full 10 days of Semana Santa, and most of the downtown streets were closed for the full time period. The city basically shuts down during the processions. No taxis, public transportation, etc. Luckily downtown Sevilla is pretty condensed compared to what I’m used to (you could never get around Barcelona by walking alone) so we didn’t have any problems. And all tourist stuff, bars, and restaurants were open so everything worked out well. Semana Santa processions are creepy and eerie and not at all a jovial celebration. They also seem pretty politically incorrect, because the traditional dress of the week closely resembles the KKK. These tunics are what they used to wear when prosecuting Jews throughout Spain, and they still wear them to celebrate Easter. Pretty creepy, if you ask me. The whole thing was really bizarre. If these guys look this creepy during the day, imagine what they look like in the streets at 3:00 in the morning holding a life-size statue of Jesus on the cross and chanting solemnly in Latin. (see pic)

Creepy by day...

Much more intense at night...

The Cathedral in Sevilla is the third largest in the world (following St. Paul’s and the Vatican) and proudly showcases Christopher Columbus’ remains (all of Spain LOVES Columbus, kind of in a weird obsessive way that I can’t really understand). I don’t mean to sound culturally inept, but I am sick of cathedrals. They are all impressive, yes, but they all look the same and start to blend together. So we went to the Cathedral, walked to the bell tower to get a good view, and got bored pretty quickly and left. Next we went to the Alcazaba, the Arabic Sultan palace from the 12th century. It was way cooler than I was expecting it to be. Really interesting architecture and details, and an enormous garden that we wandered in for hours. It was pretty warm that day so we enjoyed getting some sun.

Cool Cathedral, this pic only shows a small portion of it, but it's HUGE.

Enjoying the impressive Alcazar:

Goofy jumping picture in the gardens of the Alcazar. It was my first day of spring break and I was pretty excited...

Aside form the Cathedral and the Alcazar, we spent our time in Sevilla watching the processions and exploring the city. It’s a really vibrant city and people in Southern Spain are much more friendly and hospitable (southern hospitality is universal?) than in Barcelona. The entire city smells like flowers and the streets are lined with orange trees. (Guess what Mom, orange juice was my staple drink over spring break, I’m growing up!) My one complaint about Sevilla is that anything ordered in a restaurant is covered with a thick layer of mayonnaise. Random. Oh yea, our hostel was extremely impressive. It had a really nice common room with TV/internet, a really nice kitchen with free breakfast, and a rooftop deck with couches for taking naps in the sun.

Downtown Sevilla at sunset:

Let’s see… after a few days in Sevilla we left for Morocco, but I think Africa deserves its own blog post. I’ll skip to our post-Morocco stop in Granada.

Well after returning to Spain from Morocco we spent one last night in Sevilla (Good Friday, insane amounts of processions) before taking a train to Granada. I admit I knew nothing about Granada aside from the Alhambra, and I was really impressed. Granada is the Spanish version of what I would imagine Boulder to be like in the 70s with a Muslim influence. Translation: it is hippy and bohemian and overall really cool and unique. Kate and I got to Granada a day before anyone else (for some reason Kate and I always end up traveling together: see Pyrenees trip) and we had a night to explore a bit and catch up on sleep.

On Saturday (now we’re up to April 7th, I think) we woke up at 6:00 am to get in line for tickets to the Alhambra. For those of you unfamiliar with the Alhambra, it is an immense Arabic/Moorish palace and gardens, and an old military fortress. It’s probably the most famous thing in Spain next to the Prado. Actually maybe more famous, I’m not sure. Anyway, you’re supposed to reserve tickets to the Alhambra online up to a year in advance. Obviously unorganized college kids didn’t plan nearly that far in advance, so we were stuck standing in line for almost four hours in the freezing cold (no one told us Granada was in the mountains). Anyway, standing in line was worth it and it was really fascinating. The whole time up there, standing in line, waiting for our assigned time, took about 10 hours.

Part of the Alhambra overlooking the Arabic neighborhood of Granada:

Here's a picture of Kate and I in the Royal Palace at the Alhambra:

After the Alhambra we met up with friends Katie and Maggie who had arrived that day, and did dinner and bars until I passed out exhausted in the hostel.

Oh, the hostel. More like a brothel. Overcrowded, sketchy, people sleeping on mattresses in the ceiling beams, 1 shared coed bathroom for over 50 people, a room specially designated for pot smoking, and a drunk owner. We were in a six-bed female dorm that ended up being me, Kate, an old woman, two men, and a British girl. All sharing a room. It wasn’t even a hotel setup; it was basically rooms of an old house filled with bunk beds. I feel like I could have really enjoyed myself and appreciated the strange vibe of this place if it hadn’t been that I was paying way too much money to stay there. Well, clearly I survived to write about it unscathed, so I’ll stop complaining. In conclusion, I’m more uptight than I thought. Or maybe it’s that I wasn’t on drugs to enjoy the situation.

Luckily Granada is way too cool to spend time in the hostel, when you could be exploring. The next day was Easter, and it was pretty unconventional. We started with an Easter brunch complete with 2 bottles of champagne. We then wanted to explore the Arabic neighborhood where our hostel was. We found a road that ran alongside the river towards the mountains), and all the walls and bridges and benches were covered with people celebrating Easter in a very non-religious way. It had more of a 4th of July vibe than anything else. It was really warm outside and people were playing music and drinking a lot and having picnics. So we joined in. We wandered up and down the river front to different cafes and groups of people listening to street music and dancing and drinking. The whole thing was very bohemian and kind of surreal, and really fun. In Granada, when you order a drink you get a plate of free food, so we ended up stuffed.

Pic: the street along the river in Granada on Easter:

Later in the afternoon we wandered into the gypsy village, which is up in the hills where all the houses are caves built into the hillside. Gypsies are alive and well in southern Spain, trying to offer you spring of herbs and distracting you by reading your palm while they rob you. At least these are the types of gypsies that tourists run into. There’s also an interesting culture behind the gypsies, and we were able to see a really cool area of caves where they live and rarely go down into town. Gypsies aren’t allowed to live in the main part of Granada, and the Muslims have to live in their own neighborhood too. I’ve discovered that Europe has a lot of these ancient stereotypes and prejudices against various minorities, so old and traditional that they really don’t have any rhyme of reason. It’s probably likely that gypsies and Muslims could live in the city center if they really wanted to, but their ancestors have lived in these designated neighborhoods for generations and it’s just a cultural norm at this point. Culture and society is so interesting in Europe, especially in a place like Granada where there’s such a mix of cultures. Society doesn’t have such a historical background in the States, so it’s a really different dynamic. I’ve experienced this in other parts of Europe, too. Weird prejudices that have no logical. Anyway, I’ll get off my rant and conclude by saying that Granada is really interesting and unique and diverse.


Easter in gypsy town.

Let’s see… Easter ended with the traditional (sarcasm) Easter dinner of falafel and then some bars with some American students that someone knew somehow.

Monday was a 14 hour bus ride back to Barcelona, and I choose to forget that day ever existed because it was more or less the most boring day of my life. Highlight: saw Alicante and Valencia from the highway. Reminded me of my Spanish campers from last summer that I so dearly loved (more sarcasm).

So now I’m back in Barcelona for the last few weeks of school. I will write about Morocco tomorrow, but I don’t know how I’ll be able to sum up that trip.

See most of you SOON! Can’t wait.
Love,
Laura

March flew by

Saturday, March 24

Turns out I’m really not good at keeping a consistent blog. The month of March has flown by, and now I’m realizing I haven’t written in my blog for a good three weeks. Thinking of what I’ve been doing three weeks ago seems like too much to write about at the moment, so I’ll take it easy on myself and start with today.

Today (Saturday, when I’m writing this) was great. I’m pretty picky about what a good Saturday consists of, and this one was close to perfect. I think anyone who has a rigid schedule of school or work can appreciate a good Saturday. I woke up at 11:00, met some friends for brunch… and I had PANCAKES for the first time in months. So delicious. When we finished brunch around 2:00 pm it was raining, and spring rain is one of my favorite things… like when the sky is clear (never quite figured that one out) and the air is warm and it’s sprinkling lightly, just perfect. Even more perfect since I brought my umbrella. So following pancakes and rainstorm was a great after-rain-before-dusk run through my neighborhood and up towards Mt. Tibidabo. The neighborhood above where I live is filled with old early 1900s mansions and beautiful churches and parks. After my awesome pain-free run was dinner (always a dreaded event, refer to past entries) and tonight’s dinner was incredible followed by crepes for dessert, which I’ve been missing dearly since gorging myself of crepes with my brother last weekend in Paris. So to sum it up, sleep + pancakes + spring rain + good run + crepes = stellar Saturday.

Tonight was interesting, but also good. I met two friends, Natalie and Brendon, for a movie. Natalie spotted a movie theater that shows American movies in English with Spanish subtitles, so we decided to go there and get our English fix. She picked a movie with the Spanish subtitles “Infiltrados” which anyone can guess would be “Infiltrated” in English. So thinking this is a new movie that came out since leaving home, we thought we’d take a chance knowing nothing about it and decided to see it. Basically “Infiltrados” somehow translates to “The Departed.” Now I have seen “The Departed” three times in the theater and tonight I paid thinking it was something I’d never seen before. Oh, the thrills of wasting money due to language barriers. I’ve gotten so good at that. At least I like the movie. And it was really good to hang with some people I don’t socialize with very often, and I got home before the metro closed at 2:00 am, meaning I saved 15 euro on a cab. So in the end it was a good night.

And now it’s really late, and I haven’t written about the most exciting events of the past few weeks… family visiting and going to Paris! It’s kind of daunting to sit down and try to write about Paris and spending time with the fam, because they were both such huge events. So I’m going to sleep, and writing again tomorrow will me on my list of things to do.



Sunday, March 25

Today was uneventful, but altogether a good Sunday in Barcelona. Katie and I met to study and ended up playing around the city until the sunset. Studying is overrated, anyway. I have to confess, I made my first trip to McDonald’s today. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it was worth the lowering of standards. Their ice cream cones are 60 cents (about 5 euro less than any other ice cream in this city), and they had a promotional sign near the door that had a big picture of a happy meal and big letters saying, in English, “Do you wanting?” which we thought was entertaining, I guess we’re easily amused.

Anyway, I want to write about how great March has been, which will take awhile. I’ll try to re-cap the past two weeks. The second week of March was the week I’ve been waiting for more or less since I got here. Not to say I haven’t enjoyed myself, but of course I’ve been waiting anxiously for the arrival of my family. My cousin Megan flew in on Friday, and my parents and brother flew in on Saturday night. I dragged the jet-lagged group to the much-anticipated FC Barcelona vs. Real Madrid futbol game. This is one of the biggest games in Europe, more or less the Spanish Super Bowl but with a lot more rivalry and political stuff behind it. I think most of my excitement was that I could watch it with my Bryant, who is actually a soccer fan, as opposed to my friends here who don’t know a thing about it. We wondered through the university area and found a packed bar to watch the game. I felt bad dragging everyone to the bar the night they got here, but I think everyone (especially the boys) really enjoyed the game, or at least the first-night together in Europe. Tie game, therefore no rowdy fans in the streets, at least in our area.

The next week I tried to split my time between school and hanging with the family, and in the end I basically ignored school for a week. We covered more of Barcelona than I thought we would, and I was able to skip class and join them to Montserrat, a really cool monastery in the mountains about an hour outside of the city. (This was the one thing they were seeing that I hadn’t seen yet.) My parents had rented a really cool apartment in Barrio Gotic, and I definitely benefited from this and was able to get a 10 day break from my host-home. Not that it’s that bad, but it was a welcomed break… in many aspects. That week is kind of a blur, but it was mostly sight-seeing, attempting to find enough food and water for Bryant, a constant search for public restrooms, lots of wine, and a whole ton of walking. It felt good to be familiar with the city that my family was visiting, and I think I was helped them navigate the city as best I could. And also, for the record, I think Megan is truly a saint for going along with my slightly insane family (I’m including myself in that category).

On Thursday Megan flew to Amsterdam, and the Masons flew to Paris. The only thing more hilarious to me than a Mason family trip, is a Mason family trip to a country with a language that none of us speak. I don’t know who reads this blog, but if any of you know the family dynamics and can imagine us trying not to stick out as foreigners, it’s kind of a joke. Paris was good to us. The weather was incredible (no rain!) and on Friday Bryant and I had something like 5 crepes a piece from stands around the city. Our hotel was about as bizarre as it gets, I don’t really know how to describe that. In one day we saw the Louvre (or a fraction of it; and as I expected the Mona Lisa is a let-down and Venus de Milo is incredible), Notre Dame, D’Orsay museum, took a boat tour down the Seine, and met up with our good friends Mike and Cathy Byrne for dinner and a trip up the Eiffel Tower at night. (Gorgeous, totally exceeded my expectations, twice as big as I thought it would be!) The next day we met up with a family friend Pierre, a Parisian that my dad went to grad school with. I don’t know when the last time we saw Pierre was, but I think it’s been 15+ years. Getting to know him confirmed there is in fact a man on earth goofier than my dad; he was awesome. He took us and the Byrnes for a pretty intense walking tour of the city. We started at Montmartre (saw a sweet parade, not sure if the occasion was the France-Scotland rugby game or St. Patrick ’s Day, or a combination of the two), then to Arc de Triomphe and Champs-Elysees, had a coffee at the Pompidou, and walked around the right bank (basically all over, I never knew where I was exactly)… we took the metro later on that day to have dinner at Pierre’s, which I think will be one of the those random memories of my youth that I will sill have when I am 80. I spent well over half of the night laughing and I think we had five bottles of wine. You can do that and still be classy when you’re in Europe, which is awesome. Paris was also kind of a blur. It’s sad that I’ll never remember every detail, but I do know that I had an absolute blast the entire time.

Bryant flew home on Monday (I was so sad, but tried not to let it show) and my parents took off for southern France. They came back and spent this past Friday with me before flying home, so it was good to slowly be weaned from them and adjust to Europe without family. It was nice to have them, and now it’s kind of lonely to come home to a family that you don’t actually know all that well. I really, really do like being here, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be sad to see my family go. I got spoiled big time when they were here, so now I have to switch back to living painfully cheaply and going to class. So sad.

However, before I get all sad and weepy about school, I can’t feel too bad for myself. Semana Santa (Holy Week, their spring break always coincides with Easter, Easter is the biggest holiday in Spain and everyone gets vacation) is coming up. I’m actually leaving this Thursday, which is pretty crazy to think about. I feel pretty unprepared to pick up and leave for 12 days. I’m sure there will be lengthy blog posts about this trip. Two weeks after Semana Santa is finals, so I really need to do something academic this week… which is unlikely. Studying abroad has ruined any study skills I once possessed.

Write more later, who knows when.
Much love,
Laura

Concerts, eclipses, and little kids

Saturday, March 3

(I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this, but usually how this blog works is that I write at home, and then it usually takes a day or two for me to get internet and post what I’ve written.)

Halfway though the program and I’m already facing a few “lasts.” For example, I think this will be my last relatively chill and calm Saturday afternoon for the rest of my time in Spain. Between family visits, lots more traveling, a group excursion with my program, and finals, this is my last Saturday to be completely worthless and relax. So that’s precisely what I did, by sleeping in until 1:00 pm. If I did this in Boulder I would be completely mortified that I wasted a day, but here I don’t really care. I’m studying abroad and my study skills have deteriorated into nothing, and I don’t feel like I have to justify sleeping in late to myself. Today would have been a perfect day for the beach, but apparently there was a political demonstration going on at the beach and Americans are strongly urged to stay away from emotionally-charged political activists, because chances are they hate Americans. Instead, I walked around my neighborhood, and then went to the smoothie shop for free internet (all the employees know my name and know I’ll order the cheapest thing and then stay till my computer battery runs out).

Before my neighborhood excursion, I had a movie playing on my computer while cleaning up a bit, when this really adorable 3-year-old dressed like a little man (with a sweater vest and Dockers) walked into my room. I’ve met my senora’s grandkids before, but in a different setting, and he didn’t recognize me. He looked at me for a second, obviously stunned to see a strange lady in a tank top and shorts in his grandma’s house. Then, with no shyness, started rambling in Spanish about how he needed his toy cement truck and he knew it was in my room somewhere, and where was I hiding it. So I’m standing here confused, and this little kid is tearing apart my room looking for his toys. He finally finds the truck he wanted under my bed (NO idea how it got there, apparently there’s kids in my room when I’m not here, good to know) and then said “and I’m Nicholas” (obviously in Spanish) and walked out. It was so bizarre, he’s one of those really stubborn little kids with a lot of guts and a huge personality and I got a kick out of him. So I played trucks with him for a little while, but he was really bossy and got upset when I couldn’t understand him. I think in his mind “No hablo espanol, Nicholas. No entiendo eso. (I don’t understand that)” translated to “I don’t want to do what you say, Nicholas.” So he was annoyed by me in the end, and that’s when I decided to take a walk. But he was adorable and I hope the grandkids come around more often.

What else… last night was great. My friend Maggie’s parents are in town from Chicago, and they invited me to join them last night. We started with drinks and tapas at the craziest place in the world (if I was overwhelmed I can’t imagine how they felt) and then at midnight we moved on to dinner at a place that I’m going to force my parents to go to. By the end of dinner it was after 2:00 am and I had had a fair amount of drinks after four hours with them, so I got a cab and went home, got home at 3:00, which is pretty early by Barcelona standards (and then slept till 1:00 pm).

So I think I mentioned earlier in my time here that people in Spain have a different concept of time and efficiency. Example: If my advisor says to come see him in his office tomorrow, I have to ask exactly what time because he’s probably only in his office for about three hours scattered throughout the day. And then if he says 3:00, I should come at 2:00 just in case, and he’ll probably be there sometime between 2:00 and 5:00, or never show up. And if you have plans to meet up with a Spanish person for tapas or something, if you’re meeting at 10:00 then it’s better to show up at 10:30 and you’ll still wait for at least 10 or 15 minutes. (I just realized that this all sounds pretty sarcastic, and although it is a little bit, it’s pretty accurate also.) So being a pretty prompt person, this has been something I’ve struggled to get used to. I thought it was just a Spanish thing, but I was reading my friend Corny’s blog and apparently timeliness doesn’t translate well in Peru either. I’m copy/pasting a paragraph from his post because I think it’s hilarious, and it’s funny that something like that could be a commonality for our completely different experiences in Peru and Spain.

“So I watched the Peruvian news that plays on one of our 3 television stations before lunch. Today is the start of the national governments campaign to respect punctuality. At noon sharp, there was a celebration urging every Peruvian to set their watches to the same time and to try to be on time to everything from now on. Here’s to high hopes.”

I copy/paste people’s blogs into Word when I have internet, and then it makes for great English reading material when I’m at home.

Ok, I’m ending my boring Saturday blog. Turns out I’m going to a concert tonight (just found out… we had planned to but after spending five hours trying to track down tickets and failing, we had given up) so I now have to go tell me host mom I’ll eat a late dinner.

Oh I forgot. I saw two robberies on the street yesterday and no one did anything or really reacted. Men in business suits come up behind women on the phone, take the phone and run. It’s really freaky and I’m never using my phone on the street again.

More later on,
Laura



*later on*
Sunday, March 4

Another relaxing day in Tibidabo (my neighborhood) and this time I’ll actually do homework. I only slept in until 11:45 today (I am the epitome of lazy!) so that gives me a bit more time to get stuff done. Well, that’s the idea at least; we’ll see how much I do.

A friend of mine got some tickets to the Lily Allen concert last night, for 10:00 pm. We met a little before the concert started and had some cocktails, and then went to the venue called Espacio Moviestar. The venue was bizarre, but so is almost everything in Spain, so I’m no longer fazed. Lily Allen was great. I think the thing I like most about her is that she reminds me of one of my best friends Paula, because she’s sassy and has an attitude, and of course also has an incredible voice. She’s British and 21 and is already pretty making a name for herself. After the concert we ran into our friend Mike and some of his friends, and walked outside and there was a CRAZY eclipse going on. I don’t know enough about astronomy to know if the people in the U.S. saw the same thing that we saw, but if you did, wasn’t it cool?? Actually, if it’s night time in the states right now, (it’s 4 am there, early Sunday morning) would you be seeing the eclipse now? Or if it happened when it was light in the states (when it was midnight here, Saturday night) does that mean you don’t get to see it? Hmmm… now I’ve confused myself and I obviously don’t know what I’m talking about.

So after the concert was tapas and sangria, of course. We’re in Spain, and that’s all we do. I got home around 2:00 am and passed out exhausted. I feel better now, I think I finally caught up on some much-needed sleep. On to “homework” also known as wasting time. Midterms are coming up this week, but then the excitement in my life should pick up again, and thus the excitement in my blogs should pick up. Keep your fingers crossed!

Amor para todos,
Laura

two months in

Well, my goal for tonight was to get a lot of homework done, but it’s already 10:30 and I just finished dinner with my Senora. She started talking about politics again, and I was feeling a little bit rebellious so I carefully thought of a phrase in my broken Spanish just to see if I could get a reaction out of her. Translated, I said something along the lines of “Regardless of who is elected next, the United States has some challenges in the next few years regaining allies and the respect of the rest of the world.” Of course I could have been more articulate if I wasn’t speaking Spanish, but that sentence is about as far as I can get in Spanish. In normal circumstances this comment wouldn’t get someone so riled up, but Claudine went crazy. So I’m not going to get any homework done tonight because I just heard the 2 hour version of my French host mom explaining U.S. politics to me and why Europe should support every U.S. policy unconditionally because Europe owes us that for saving them in WWII. All of her politics are based on WWII and Muslims. Whatever, at least it’s entertaining to hear her go off like that. Note to self: next time I have stuff to do I shouldn’t say stuff like that.

Today after class (I HATE CLASS) I was in a pretty bad mood. I spent a few hours on the computer typing up papers for class and doing some research. I also spent about 20 minutes adding up everything I have to write, and it adds up to 73 pages of Spanish. Just thinking about it makes me want to be sick. (Science majors should never have to write that much, especially in a different language. I feel like I’m back in AP Language with Mrs. Dietrich except this time someone’s playing a mean joke on me and making me write everything in a foreign language.) So after class and school work and lamenting over my 73 pages, I met my friend Katie to go for a run. I haven’t run in months, mostly because every time I do my chronically disabled knee is sore for the next week. I thought I’d give it another shot today, mostly because I have spring fever and it was 65 degrees and gorgeous today. We ran through the fishermen’s neighborhood called Barcelonetta, down along the beach and port and up past the Arc de Triumph. During the run we counted about 25 men either making gross gestures or yelling stuff or in one case, running after us. Seeing people running, especially American girls, is like a once-a-year event and I guess that makes them want to cat call us even more than usual. Regardless, after the run I felt completely refreshed and rejuvenated, and I’m not going to let creepy men keep me from running. On the downside, I now know I can’t run by myself down by the beach even in the middle of the afternoon.

So those are the exciting events of March 1st in Barcelona. Running and my senora being crazy. Another interesting side note, I almost went an entire blog entry without mentioning food, which for some reason seems to be a common theme. So here it is, my news about food: I’ve eaten 7 apples since Monday. They have really good apples here and you can get three for a euro.
This weekend is going to be dull. Four of my good friends’ parents are visiting this weekend and three of my other friends are traveling (Rome, Swiss Alps, Prague… I’m jealous!) My only plan is a concert on Saturday night and dinner with a friends’ family at some point. I will have lots of free time. I guess that means I need to get all my work done so I can do nothing but play when my family arrives in ONE WEEK!!!!

More later!

Love,
Laura

Febrero en España

February in Spain:

I’ll get right into my random thoughts that you, in turn, will have to read. Good luck.

Somehow, by pure luck or a gift from God, I have chosen to venture from Colorado (and the United States) during the worst winter in history, according to disgruntled friends and family in CO, Chicago, and the North East. Can’t say I have any info on the weather in the rest of the states, but that’s beside the point. I don’t know how I managed to escape the wretched cold and snow, but moving to Barcelona was a good surprise. It’s been in the 50s and 60s since I got here in the beginning of January, and now it’s consistently mid-60s and sunny… and it’s February! I feel so spoiled.

I think the best way to describe Barcelona to people who haven’t been here is to equate it to San Francisco. If you combine size, weather, environmental characteristics, and overall character/quirkiness, my friends and I have decided SanFran is the best comparison. This past weekend I visited some combination of D.C. and Boston, by comparison, although it’s hard to make comparisons between the States and Europe. Anyway, this past weekend I ventured to Madrid.

Catalonians (people that live in the province of Catalonia, where Barcelona is located) absolutely despise Madrid. It’s like an evil stepmom complex, because, as I’ve mentioned before, there’s a fierce nationalistic battle over independence between those who speak Catalan and the government of Spain (hence, Madrid). Everyone that I’ve met here has told me that Madrid is dull and boring and ugly, and I begin to equate Madrid with Detroit or something… here I go again making far-fetched comparisons. Regardless, people in this part of Spain don’t like Madrid, and I was under the impression that I wouldn’t either. I went to Madrid and LOVED it. It’s a huge city and I would be constantly overwhelmed if I lived there, but my three days there were fantastic. I went with my program (CIEE) and there were 44 of us that traveled by train and were put up in a pretty nice hotel for three days. Here´s a picture of my hotel and the street we were staying on.

We split up into 4 groups by last name (just so happens my fourth of the alphabet is a group of awesome kids) and explored Madrid on foot with a tour guide hired by CIEE. Now, I could write a novel about how poorly run the program is that I’m studying through, but they did this part right: my tour guide, Fernando, was incredible. He was interesting and spoke clearly (turns out I do in fact understand Spanish, without a thick accent!) and he showed us all sorts of cool parts of Madrid.

For example: we went to a convent where about 80 nuns lived, and I know literally nothing about the Catholic church, but these particular nuns were not allowed to go outside the convent walls. Fernando said some of them had been in there for 50+ years, with virtually no news of the outside world. They have a pretty sweet way to make some extra cash, and that’s through a pastry shop run in an inner courtyard of the convent. So Fernando showed us through a maze of corridors to this inner courtyard, where this is a revolving door apparatus. You ring a bell, and someone on the inside puts a “carta” (menu) in a compartment of this revolving thing, and spins it so you on the outside can take the carta and choose what you want. Then you place your order (you just talk to her, even though she’s not allowed to talk back) and you put your money in the compartment, spin the door and wait. Then after about 5 minutes when you’re pretty sure she’s ripped you off and taken your money, and door spins again and out comes your order and your “cambio” (change). And this whole time you never seen the nun and she never talks to you. It was so completely bizarre and the pastries were insanely expensive and good.

The main plaza in Madrid, where Carnaval events took place all week. I can´t really write about carnival enough to do it justice, but just imagine a spanish flair to Mardi Gras and that´s pretty much it.

-Another highlight of the weekend: the Prado art museum. Second only to the Louvre, the Prado is nothing short of incredible. I am more or less culturally illiterate when it comes to art, but I’m taking an art history class and recognized almost everything that Fernando took us to. He is one of the directors of the Prado and knew EVERYTHING about every painting. Seriously, CIEE came through this time and hooked us up big time with this tour guide. I saw Velazquez, Goya, El Greco, and Picasso mostly, because we’re studying Spanish art. And Picasso was only put on display relatively recently, because the Prado directors though Picasso was trash until the late 70s.


This building was in the same stretch of impressive buildings as the Prado, but I don´t know what it is. Typical Madrid, though, so I thought I´t stick it in here.

-Next highlight, el Museo de Reina Sofia (Queen Sofia’s Museum, whoever the heck that is). It’s a contemporary museum with a whole lot of Dali and Picasso, but we wandered into a temporary exhibit of Chuck Close, and I bet not all of you know who that is… but that guy is so so so incredible. I was vaguely familiar with his work, and convinced my friends to take a look even though from the start it appeared to just be large photographs of people’s faces. After 10 minutes of trying to figure out why this guy is so famous, and inspected the photographs really closely, we figured out that he had painted all the faces. When you read this you’re going to think I’m a complete moron for not figuring that out sooner, but any doubters should Google Chuck Close and you will why we were stumped. So we spent the next hour staring at his stuff completely stunned, but like I said you’ll have to Google it to see what I mean. The other great part of this museum: Picasso’s Guernica, which I just so happen to be writing a very lengthy paper about. There’s something about that painting that gives you goose bumps that don’t go away until five minutes after you’ve left. It’s eerie and really interesting.

-Aside from art, the food in Madrid was amazing. A big group of girls (** On a side note, I have to explain why I am never with boys. There are 40 girls and 4 boys in our program, that’s why. I am desperately missing my male friends, as a result.**) went out to sushi one night for dinner, found a great pizza place in a side alley for lunch one day, and found a funky little organic vegetarian joint (think the Rainbow, any of you from Fort Collins) for lunch a different day, where I had tofu. What a good break from host mom Claudine’s gravy-infested dinners. Not that I’m complaining, but everyone needs a break from that kind of food. Anyway, the food was delicious. Below is a picture of Katie, Kate, and Maggie literally jumping for joy about the inexpensive and good food we found. Haha.



-Last but not least, the Royal Palace in Madrid is spectacular. It puts the White House to shame, not only by it’s size (2000 rooms, to be exact) but it is incredibly over-the-top ornate like only European palaces could be. Put that palace in the States and it would be gaudy, but in Madrid it’s beautiful. My friend Kate and I spent 2 full hours touring the palace, and we half-joked about how all the gold from South America throughout history had made it’s way to this square block in Madrid. You walk into a room that seems like it could be a dining room for the royal family, and the sign says “here’s King Felipe IV dressing room, number 6.” It’s completely ridiculous but really interesting. They still have political functions there, like quite a few middle-east peace conferences, etc. Here´s a picture of me in front of the less-impressive back of the Palace... you can´t really see me but it´s a good one of the buildnig. I´m beginnnig to realize that I´m always wearing the same thing in every picture, dark jeans and black jacket. That´s kind of pathetic, I´ll work on switching that up so you believe I own more clothing. :)



Well, this current weekend has been uneventful. I’ve been traveling a lot these past few weeks, and this is my first weekend in February in Barcelona, to relax and regroup and do some homework (that part hasn’t really happened yet). A big group of students got reservations for a good dinner on Friday night, followed by bars. I got home at 3:30, which is considered early. I don’t care what anyone thinks, 3:30 is late! Maybe I’m just an old lady. Anyway, we had fun on Friday night and I spent what I consider to be a fortune on cabs and drinks, the two most overpriced things in this city. On Saturday three of us explored a park with some elaborate name in Catalan that translates to “labyrinth park” and it’s basically a huge maze made out of bushes.

In an effort to redeem myself from Friday night, today (Sunday) has been “Laura Spends No Money Day.” And I am proud to report, as of 8:00 pm, I have spent no money in a day, for the first time since I moved to Barcelona. This is a huge event, and involves planning, such as grocery shopping last night for today’s lunch. And stock-piling bottled water in my room. Today I did exciting things such as read, update my resume (I want to get an internship for this summer, which is hard to do via e-mail), and wandered around my neighborhood. Very boring but I needed a low-key day. I could have gone to a museum or something, but that would have involved spending money, which I wasn’t allowed to do today.

My grocery store trips are always identical: fruit, some kind of protein other than meat (usually almonds), granola bars, yogurt, an occasional iced tea, and some combination of peanut butter or nutella. You have to find the right grocery store who sells all this stuff, but there is one close to my school and I love it. The ladies at the checkout line think I’m deranged, because aside from the fruit, all the other products are obscure and disgusting to them. The peanut butter/ nutella is essential for eating these bland breakfast cookies that taste like burned toast.

My host Mom, still a complete fascist and a little strange in a few other ways to be discussed later, is a sweetheart and does everything she can to make me happy. She went across town to the only true “supermarket” bigger than a convenience store, to buy me Cheez Whiz. I have no idea where she heard that all Americans eat Cheez Whiz, but she brought it out a dinner one night, really proud of herself like she was spoiling me. It’s a sweet gesture, but now I have to eat it because I don’t want to hurt her feelings. 90% of the words I say to her are enthusiastic Si! Or Gracias! Or No me importa! (it doesn’t matter to me). I have never been so completely compliant and enthusiastic in my whole life, but I am grateful that she treats me well and I’ll do anything to avoid offending or annoying her. Even when she says democracy is crap (close translation) and Bush should be our dictator, I say “Oh, si, interesante!” like what she’s telling me is so fascinating and true. Whatever, it’s a learning experience.

Ok, sorry this is getting long-winded, once again. I guess it seems longer to me because I’m typing it. Hope everyone is doing well, I miss everyone and love all of you so much.

And, Happy Birthday on Wednesday to Mom!! I love you!!!


Hasta luego,
Laura

mountains and mango

At camp we sometimes rate our days with highs and lows, so I’m going to do that now.

My high for today was my dinner. Having a good dinner is a remarkable occurrence in my house. Every night there is plenty of food and it’s usually pretty healthy, but usually disgusting. So to have a good dinner immediately becomes a worthy event for a “high.” First course, standard cooked veggies cooked in some sort of grease that congeals into something similar to lard. I will literally eat any vegetable put on my plate at this point, but the lard just doesn’t go down right. But the next part was GREAT. **Let me back up for a second. Earlier today, myself and some friends were talking about food and I was saying I wished she would just cook me a regular chicken breast with some olive oil and herbs, instead of something covered in gravy or some unidentifiable meat that I find out was veal (ick) after I eat it. So I was wishing for some normal protein, and today for dinner I got chicken with herbs and olive oil! It was magnificent and delicious. Next, for dessert, was a mango that her maid brought over from the Philippians as a present. It was the best piece of fruit I’ve ever had, without a doubt. So yes, my dinner five minutes ago was the high for the day.

My low was the veggies with lard or something, but my “high” definitely surpassed my low. Funny how something like a mango and some chicken could make my day, but that’s just easy I am to please right now!

Anyway, I wanted to post pictures of my trip to the Pyrenees a few weekends back with my friend Kate. We had a three day weekend, and literally everyone else from the program was going to Paris or Rome for our long weekend (I am lucky enough to avoid having to spend my life savings in Paris, as I’m going with my parents… YES!) Anyway, we heard about some small mountain villages and a relatively hopping ski resort, so we decided to hop a train and see what we could find. It turned out to be a great weekend with lots of adventure and a complete break from the city. I felt so much more comfortable and it was almost like going home for the weekend… being in the mountains is more my pace so it was a good mental break for me.

We stayed in a hostel in a town called Ripoll, which had a monastery that was old and beautiful, but it’s kind of a “seen one seen them all” situation with Gothic style monasteries, because the whole idea was to keep the architecture very uniform and structured. But it was beautiful and we got a kick out of the nun that followed us around cleaning benches. The next day we went to Valle de Nuria, the so-called ski resort on the border of France and Spain, and 20 kilometers east of Andorra. I included a picture of myself at Valle de Nuria, to show you the effects of global warming, hence no snow in the Pyrenees. I got sick feeling that this could be the future of ski resorts in Colorado. I’m sitting on a bridge at the ski resort town. They had three runs open and one lift, and it was all man-made snow. It was lame. But it made the hiking incredible!

Getting to this ski resort requires a trip through the mountains in an old rickety train that I swore wouldn’t make it. After we arrived at Valle de Nuria, we ruled out the chance of skiing due to the complete lack of snow, and decided to find a map with local hiking trails. Here’s a view of the mountains during the hike we took. It was cold and windy, so we didn’t make it too far, but the views were incredible and it felt so good to explore the mountain and take various goofy pictures that are too absurd to post.

After our hike was cut short due to wind, we took the train and stopped in a nameless town that turned out to be the coolest little place I have seen. It was the epitome of little European village in the hills, with uniform buildings, an old church, cobbled streets, and little pubs filled with old men that probably have known each other for half a century. Here’s a picture of me in the town, although it doesn’t give the best idea of how the town looked.

On Sunday, we started at our hostel in Ripoll and decided to take the trail to the next town, about 12 kilometers away. We packed a lunch and headed out, on a path that is similar to the one from Frisco to Breck in CO. Except it passes little farms and villages that seem to be out of a painting. Here’s a picture of Kate (with our precious baguette) standing under a bridge that marked the beginning of a section of the trail that we affectionately named the Secret Garden. We reached the town of Santa Joan and didn’t last an hour before heading back to Ripoll. The destination of the hike wasn’t anything special, but we had a lot of fun along the way.

Finally, the picture that sums up the weekend, us with our backpacks eating brie and baguettes and drinking juice boxes of wine (it’s cheaper than water, who can blame us?) on the street. Or in this case, the train station. Our presence in these tiny towns led people to believe we were homeless hippies living on the street, so we took a picture to document how silly we looked loitering around town.

This most recent weekend involved another long weekend trip, this time to Madrid. I’ll try to get some pictures organized and write a bit about Madrid later this week!

Escribiré mas luego, con amor,
Laura

general details

I have to comment on my daily life in Barcelona, mainly because I’ve only been talking about the things I’ve seen and the places I’ve been going on the weekends, and thus ignoring what I do here day to day. It’s weird to think I actually live here, even if it’s temporary. I’ve been reading my friend Andrew’s blog who is in a remote part of Peru for two years in the Peace Corps, and the most interesting parts of what he writes about is living in a different place. So although it might be mundane, I’m going to write down what living here is like, because that’s what’s on my mind.

I’ll skip right to bullet form because that’s how my thought process is.

- There is virtually no wildlife in Barcelona minus pigeons. Spanish pigeons are incredibly vicious. There are signs in the plazas and parks that, when translated, read “Do not come close to a pigeon, it is an aggressive animal it will bite you.” It’s like a sign you would see in Rocky Mountain National Park, except substitute the word “pigeon” for “bear.” If a pigeon swoops low towards a group of people, everyone ducks and sometimes little children scream. This is not an exaggeration. All pigeons have red eyes and most don’t have toes, or have some other deformity. I haven’t spent much time in other cities to compare, but I think these are the nastiest birds on earth.

- Almost everyone owns dogs, even though they live in tiny apartments. Strangely enough, there is a high ratio of huge dogs in this city. The only other animal I have seen in the past five weeks is a fat orange cat that sits all day, every day, in the window of a pet supply store. He’s the best part of walking to and from the metro everyday. I love him.

- I had long conversations every night with my host mom, Claudine. She is French and hates Barcelona and loves the U.S. I figured that out the first night. What I have come to figure out after many conversations with her, is that she is a fascist. That might seem a little harsh, but it’s actually the most accurate description for her. She’s a sweet old lady, but I suppose Nazis can be sweet old ladies too. Some details of her political and social beliefs I’m not clear on because she’s talking in Spanish, but here’s the things she’s said that I am absolutely positive I heard correctly. First, She says Spain is run by communists. Actually they are run by the Labor party, aka the liberal “socialists” if you want to stretch it that far. Second, she thinks the communist government is out to get her and her money. Third, she was a supporter of Franco and his forty-some year dictatorship in Spain. Franco was a fascist and executed tons of people and didn’t allow women to drive cars or wear pants. And my Senora loved him, said he was the best thing to ever happen to this country. Fourth, she says there is a problem with immigration from North Africa because “the Arabs come here with their three wives and 20 kids and take our money and jobs,” direct quote from the lady herself. I could give you more examples but I think you get the gist.

- With that being said, let me say that I really do love living with this lady. Claudine is 70 and her husband, retired doctor Rafael, is 85. She is sweet and generous and takes good care of me and always wants to know how my day was and if I’m lonely or if I’m happy. She likes to shop, and her favorite store is Gucci and she has a ton of money, some of which I think is family money from her father. She used to play polo and ski and she loves her grandchildren and shows me books about France. I never thought I could live this comfortably with a woman with her views and racism and all that, but I guess for four months there could be much worse people to live with. I’m sure her husband shares her views, but I never see him and he might be a little senile and doesn’t talk much.

- The last few days have been a little bit challenging. As probably all of you know who are reading this, the first two weeks I was here were traumatic and challenging. Since then it’s probably clear that things have gotten a lot better. I’ve been here six weeks now and I can tell you that I am so glad to be here and have this experience. It’s definitely easier in ways I wasn’t expecting and harder in ways I wasn’t expecting, but this is the first time leaving outside of Colorado, and at 21 years of age I needed that change. Anyway, things are better but there are always highs and lows and the past few days have been a bit of a low. I’ve had a lot of time to think and be by myself for a change, and this is my conclusion: My feelings of loneliness are temporary. Homesickness is temporary. But living in Europe is also temporary, and I have to take full advantage of the time I have here. Six weeks is close to a 1/3 of the duration of my program, and things are only going to happen faster from here.

- On a lighter note, let me tell you about my daily commute to class. I might have already mentioned that I have a 20 minute walk to the nearest metro stop, then 15 minutes on the metro, and then 15 minute walk to class. For awhile I was really enjoying that time I had to walk alone and take in everything going on in the city, but now it’s repetitive and annoying. I can’t really zone out and listen to my iPod, because I have to be on constant alert or I will get hurt. Let me explain: motorcycles drive on the sidewalks when they feel like it. For some reason I’ve only seen this happen in my neighborhood, but it is not fun. I thought motorcycles driving between lanes of cars in the States was frustrating, but this is just plain scary. If traffic is bad they will drive up the curb and go zooming down the sidewalk, and any pedestrian in their way should watch out. So after an exhausting day of classes and general stress of living here, I then have a 20 minute walk home jumping out of the way of motorcycles. **Also, taxis are apparently exempt from stoplights so when you are at a stoplight and you have the right of way, you can assume they won’t stop for you.

- I went to the beach today. I love that I can say that. It was a little chilly but it’s still the Mediterranean so you won’t hear me complaining. But in reality, the beach near the Barcelona port is quite hideous and part of the red-light district, so there’s really no reason to go there unless it’s nice enough to lay and read or go for a swim. Today we walked around a little bit, walked out on the pier, got harassed by a naked homeless man, and decided to go home. Life is never dull here.

- In between classes, Spanish students in the university I go to drink beer, smoke, and make out with each other. Public displays of affection are rampant in Spain. I think that’s because college students still live with their parents and the only time they see the people they are dating is in public, so they just stand there making out for long amounts of time. And I don’t understand the beer in between classes, or the smoking, or why they live 9 years longer than the average American if they are continuously smoking all day.

Ok, I am done ranting. Hope you found something in here interesting or entertaining.

Love you and miss you all, of course. ¡Felíz Día de San Valentín!
Laura

London!

Well you won’t have to read anymore about the Spanish language or touring buildings by Gaudi, the famous Barcelona architect. I’ll give the readers of this blog (I actually don’t know how many readers there are) a break from Barcelona, for I myself got a break from Barcelona. I went to London for a long weekend, and it was incredible. Definitely exceeded my expectations. I visited my friend from school Heather, and my friend Tom who is working there. More on that later.

Mostly I packed my days with touristy stuff, and was able to see much more of the city than I expected. Heather insisted we walk everywhere, which was a great way to see much more than the city. I’ve discovered that if you take the metro/subway/tube to every destination, you miss all the fascinating stuff between the popular tourist hot spots. So in between the famous London sights, I saw a wide variety of neighborhoods. London isn’t organized like Barcelona. In Barcelona, center = old, touristy, and each concentric circle around the center consists of increasingly newer and less interesting neighborhoods. London is not like this. Everything is kind of mixed up together, probably a result of the river running through the city’s core. You can’t keep things organized when you’re building a city around a river, and I like it better that way.

Anyway, I got in at 3:00 am on Thursday night/ Friday morning, and started Friday with the sightseeing. I wandered around London all day Friday, all day Saturday, and Sunday morning, and it's amazing how much you can see when you speed-walk about 12 hours a day! Anyway, I saw St. Paul's cathedral, Shakespeare's Globe Theater, Tate Modern museum, Trafalgar's Squre, the National Gallery, some great open-air farmer's markets, Old Ben, Parliment, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, SoHo, Chinatown, some really wealthy but interesting neighborhoods near Hyde Park, etc. In other words, I covered a lot of ground in a fast weekend, and I could write a page on each thing, but I will spare you the pain of reading that and skip to the highlights:

Here's a picture of St. Paul's cathedral, but the best part of the picture is the blue sky! It was cold, but I felt very lucky to have blue skies in London in February! Lucky me. Interesting fact about this church: when it was built, the government didn't want a big dome on top because it was two Italian at the time. So they asked the architect to redesign the building to fit London's architecture at the time. The architect redesigned the entire church and submitted a new floor plan, which was approved, but built his dome anyway and somehow no one figured it out until it was too late to stop him. Now it's one of the most famous functioning churches in Europe, so I guess lying to the city planners paid off big time.

This next picture is of myself and my friend Heather, who showed me around the city all weekend. Heather and I lived in the same dorm freshmen year and sort of fell out of touch after we moved. She's studying for a year at City University in London, so I stayed in her building (you can rent rooms there for a reasonable rate) and she and her British boyfriend Michael hung out with me all weekend. I also was able to explore the city with my friend Tom, an Australian guy who I worked at camp with over the summer, who is now working and living in London until April. It was so awesome to see people from home that I've known for more than a month (unlike every person in Spain). Anyway, here's a picture of Heather and I walking along the river towards Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery.
Here's a shot Trafalgar’s Square from the steops of the National Gallery. The National Gallery was incredible. I saw quite a bit of DiVinci, which I've never seen before, plus some Monet (I fell in love with Monet when I saw an exhibit in Chicago when I was about 12), and Van Gogh. Plus many others, but I won't bore you. It's weird to walk into a room and and see the orignial of a painting that's hanging in your bedroom at home. Really surreal... whenever I see massively famous paintings I have a hard time realizing that all those postcards and prints are based off of this one, small, piece of art. Anyway, I was blown away by the art in that museum and it made me excited to see the Prado in Madrid, and of course it made me excited for Paris!

I had to take a picture of a man walking on a ladder around a plaza, when we were sitting having a coffee at a cafe. I never realized how scary the color of the lady's hair in the foreground is. Anyway, this is proof that sometimes the most memorable parts of a trip are the ones that aren't planned, and are free! This man went on to tight-rope walk across the square. (like slack lining, which many of my relatives may know of thanks to Bryant) It was entertaining!

Parliament and Old Ben, doesn't need much explanation.

Westminster Abbey: this was my favorite of all the touristy attractions. I spent a few hours wandering around, and it was so fascinating. There's a lot more history and interesting stuff in Westminster Abbey than I thought. For example, every king and queen of England for centuries is buried here. And around them is their family by blood and marriage, and all in these extremely elaborate tombs. My favorite part was a corner of the abbey called the Poets' Corner, which is basically a mini-cemetary for every famous artists, musician, writer that has come out of England, minus Shakespeare. I was wondering if these artists had to agree with the church and religion to be buried in Westminster Abbey, or if they just had to be famous enough.

Buckingham Palace: to be completely honest, this was not interesting in the slightest bit. They don't even let you within 20 yards of the red-coated super-serious guards, which would have been the most entertaining part.

Aside from these famous places, I spent my time hanging out with my friends and eating really well. On Friday and Saturday nights I ate in Chinatown (but actually had Japanese one night and Thai the next). My friend Tom is a bartender so we avoided obscenely high drink prices (7.50 pounds for a cocktail = $15.00 US dollars) by visiting him while he was working.

Anyway, I have returned to Barcelona with an empty wallet and a full stomach, and I'm very far behind in my class readings, so that's my plan for tonight.

And most importantly, my thoughts go out to my poor relatives, also known as the Bear fans. Sorry for your loss. Grandma said it was also about -30 degree wind chill in Chicago, so it seems you're really not getting a break! ;) Anyway, sorry to hear about the football game results.

Love and miss all of you.

Anything built in “BC” is worth my time

Yet another update for my blog… this was my fourth weekend in Barcelona and I still haven’t seen a fraction of what there is to see here. Even some of the big sights I haven’t seen, but I guess that’s not a problem when I have another three months here.

It’s strange to think that I’ve been here close to four weeks. Yet today was my first day of real classes. It’s a relief to finally have something that resembles a set routine. I’m taking Spanish grammar (required, and boring), Barcelona: History and City (includes five field trips, which will be great), Society and Politics of Spain, and Spain and Catalonia through the arts. Taking a language class, history course, political science course, and an art history class are all as far away from my major as I can get. But maybe that’s a good thing. All the classes are in Spanish, which is difficult. I understand approximately half of what’s being said. Hopefully that percentage goes up dramatically, and soon. I’m trying not to freak out too much… if I was at home and I only understood half of the material I would be panicking. But I remain optimistic.

A plus to my school schedule is that I finish class at noon on Tuesday and Thursday, which in this city is mid-morning, so I will have a lot of time to explore on my own. I’ve declared Tuesdays to be “Museum Tuesdays” because I have figured out there are exactly the same number of museums in this city as there are weeks of class, and that way I’m being productive with my time. As I was typing that last sentence, I came to the realization that I am one of the biggest nerds I know.

This past weekend was pretty interesting. The weather has been less than perfect, with cold temperatures (40 degrees Fahrenheit), wind, and overcast skies. My program (about 30 of us in the Advanced Program… it’s a joke that I’m considered advanced) made a trip to Tarragona, about an hour south of Barcelona. Tarragona was the capital of Spain when it was occupied by the Romans. The central area of the city is boxed in within the remaining walls of the Roman city. This oldest part of the town was built around 300 B.C. Pretty incredible.

Here’s a picture of modern buildings within the Roman city walls of Tarragona. My friend Mike is trying to avoid a car in the narrow streets. This part of the city is fascinating and quiet, while the rest of Tarragona is industrial and ugly.

A picture of me standing in front of a church. The church was built in the 12th century, making it the most modern building we saw on the tour. The steps I’m standing on are about 1,000 years older than the church. I was freezing cold.

This was the creepy part. This is part of the old Roman ruins (I didn’t include a picture because it didn’t look like much from the outside). I couldn’t understand enough of our tour guide’s fast talking Spanish (with Catalan thrown in) to figure out more about this tunnel, but every 10 yards was another small dark room. He told us to imagine the movie “Glatiator” was we walked through the tunnel.

There was also a gladiator-type stadium at the base of the town, next to the sea. It could be filled with sea water during the summer for water sports and swimming competitions… so awesome!!

Here’s the best view of Tarragona from the top of the Roman tower. Don’t let the beach and blue sky fool you. It was so so cold! The statue is of Julius Caesar.

After leaving Tarragona, we drove an hour west to a monastery. The drive was mostly through the countryside, but to me it looked identical to the western slope of Colorado. It’s arid even though it’s next to the sea, but still manages to be a huge area for agriculture and vineyards. (Again, sounds like western slope CO) Kind of pretty, but not extraordinarily interesting. The monastery, however, was incredible. As far as I could tell no one is there permanently, but it used to house many monks, living there continuously for centuries. Also very old, and that’s basically all I know about it. I’ll include two pictures.


On Sunday, my friend Maggie and I toured a neighborhood called El Eixample, which is considered an outdoor museum of Modernism architecture. In the early 1900s there was basically a competition to create the most eccentric building in the neighborhood. The coolest/ craziest houses were built by Gaudi, and we toured the inside of La Padrera, the coolest of the Gaudi houses. I won’t include many pictures because to be honest I’m kind of sick of everything related to Gaudi (Sagrada Familia, Parc Guell, and various other places I’ve written about are also by Gaudi). Anyway, the weekend was pretty mellow and educational, and I’m excited to change things up a bit this next weekend.
Picture of my in front of La Padrera. Again, pictures don't do these buildings justice so this is the only one I'll put up.

The Super Bowl starts at 1:00 am on Sunday night, and apparently the place to watch it is at the Hard Rock Café. (Go figure) So I guess I need to decide how much I care about the Bears and decide if they are worth staying up all night for. It would be different if four of my friends here weren’t from Chicago.

Anyway, sorry again for the lengthy update. It will get more interesting from here… I won’t reveal my upcoming trips to keep you in suspense and to give you reason to keep checking up on me.

All for now,
Love,
Laura