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.