El tiempo vuela cuando viaja

This is what I’ve been up to in the last month and a half:
Morocco (October 8-13): Overall a very humbling and eye-opening experience. The ISA staff had told us to expect the worse as far as hotels and food, but everything was a lot nicer than I expected. On the bus ride through Spain and on the ferry ride across the Strait of Gibraltar, we were constantly reminded that for the first two nights we would be staying in an “African” four-star hotel, not a European one. Turns out hotels in Africa are a lot nicer than hotels in Europe. We spent the first two days in Fes, home to the largest medina in the world. “Medina” means city or town in Arabic and like most medinas, the medina in Fes was a walled city with narrow maze-like streets. Cars are prohibited in the medina so goods are moved on donkeys. The day we were at the medina it poured, which made an already bad experience worse. The medina was crowded and dirty. The markets were interesting but meat and fish and set out on tables and subject to all weather conditions. Our first stop in the medina included a Moroccan pharmacy, which was basically an American herbal medicine store. The store owner gave us an hour long presentation about various herbs and incenses in the store ranging from saffron and musk to opium an herb that has the same effects as Viagra. I purchased some saffron and a little bar of musk to give to Mitch so his shoes don’t smell so bad. Next on our agenda was a fabric and garment store. There one of the store owners dressed me up like Jasmine then proceeded to encourage me to buy the outfit, insisting that I would love it so much that I would wear it every day in the US. Nice try. I bought a scarf instead for 100 dirham, or about 10 euro. We then stopped at a leather store which included a trip up to a balcony overlooking the leather making plant. We received sprigs of mint on our way up to the balcony because we were told it would smell really bad. The smell of leather-making was probably the worst scent I have every smelt. The next day we left for the Sahara desert. The trip to the desert was interesting; apparently our ISA directors had never been rained on when they had taken students to Morocco in the past. We had been there for two days, and so far had had two days of rain. The road we took closely followed the river and at several points the river completely covered the road. We had to stop on two occasions and wait for the water to retreat a little. On our second stop, a Moroccan family allowed us to spend our six hours of downtime in there home. Finally at about midnight, we were allowed to cross the second bridge. About forty-five minutes later we arrived at a meeting point were we got of the bus and into 4x4s. After riding in the 4x4, no ride at any amusement park will ever seem exhilarating. All of the 4x4 drivers had the same mentality: get to the campsite first. At about 1AM on Saturday morning, we literally flew over a sand dune into camp. Our tents were quite nice and the rain stayed away during the two days that we camped in the desert. On Saturday we rode camels from our campsite to a nearby town. Note to anyone who is considering riding a camel: it hurts. The gait of a camel is really awkward and you can’t quite get comfortable, especially when you are traveling over shifting sand. The lifestyle of the people in that little town was eye-opening. Kids were running around without socks or shoes yet had the biggest smiles on their faces. I bought the kids some candy but hopefully someday I will be able to do more. The following day we left the desert for Meknes. We arrived in the evening, and by this point a few of my friends had already had food poisoning. Sick of the Moroccan food, we found a McDonald’s and feasted on American food. We spent most of the following day in the bus, traveling through Morocco, crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, and traveling through southern Spain. We finally arrived in Sevilla around 9PM that evening and unfortunately I succumbed to the Moroccan food poisoning that evening, too. Basically it wasn’t too much worse than when I eat dairy without taking a lactaid pill, but I made the mistake of telling my señora that I wasn’t feeling well and was restricted to a soup, cracker, fruit, and juice diet for the next couple of days.

Madrid (October 18-19): On Friday night I took the overnight bus up to Madrid and surprised Mitch. We spent the weekend visiting a few places that I wasn’t able to get to during my first week in Spain including the Museo Reina de Sofia, where we saw Picasso’s Guernica. The painting was huge and easily is one of the coolest pieces of art that I have seen. I also revisited the Museo de Prado and I finally got to see The Garden of Earthly Delights by Bosch which was also a lot larger than I thought it would be. Delights is tied with Velasquez’s Las Meninas and Tintorretos’s El lavatorio for my favorite pieces in the Prado.

Midterm week, Sevilla (October 20-23): Finally half way done with classes! Midterms here were a joke compared to tests at home. The grading system here is also markedly different: grades are given on a 10 point scale and anything above a 5 is a passing grade. In Spain, an A or a 10 is rarely given and professors are not quite as generous in their grading as American professors. I am happy to report that the lowest grade I received was an 8.9, and on top of it, my GPA does not transfer back with me, which may or may not be a good thing because it encourages me to slack off quite a bit academically.

Sevilla FC vs. VFB Stuttgart (October 23): I finally went to my first professional soccer game! Sevilla beat Champion’s League rival VFB Stuttgart 2-0. Tickets were a bit pricey, 35 euro, which I guess is about the same thing as a cheap football ticket in the US. However, unlike at football games, even the cheapest seats in the fútbol stadium had excellent views. We sat at the north end, right above the biris, extreme Sevilla fanatics, and both goals were scored right in front of us. Unfortunately, smoking is not banned anywhere in Spain and everyone around us was smoking, which detracted from the overall experience a bit.

Paris (October 30-November 3): Paris was everything it’s cracked up to be and more. Unfortunately the weekend we were there, a cold front moved through most of Western Europe and dumped rain and 40 degree Fahrenheit temperatures on Paris. The weather didn’t stop us from walking everywhere though. I bet in our four days there we easily walked 20+ miles. We spent Thursday wandering around the city and ended the evening in front of the Eiffel Tower, were we watched the hourly light show three times. France is currently holds the presidency of the European Council, so the Eiffel Tower was decked out EU-style, lit up with blue lights and twelve yellow stars. On Friday we did another loop of the city, stopping at the Sorbonne, the Pantheon where we saw the crypts of Voltaire, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Madame Curie, Victor Hugo, and Alexander Dumas, Luxembourg Park, Les Invalides (Napolean’s burial site), the Ecole Militaire, and again on the lawns of the Eiffel Tower. We then stopped at the Grand Palais, the Petit Palais and the Place de La Concorde, where Louis XVI was guillotined in 1793, before stopping of for dinner. That evening we spent several hours in the Louvre, which turned out to be a huge disappointment. Venus de Milo and the other statues were spectacular, but the Mona Lisa and a lot of the other paintings were duds. It’s like Amanda said, there are only so any times you can tolerate seeing Jesus die. Jean Louis David’s paintings redeemed the Louvre a little bit and I discovered a new painter that I particularly like, Giovanni Paolo Pannini. On Saturday, after a little bit of trouble navigating the RER trains, we made it to Versailles. On the train ride we also found the Statue of Liberty, which we had been looking for the past two days. I didn’t really know what to expect, but Versailles was a bit disappointing too. The palace too much resembled a museum and the curator of the palace decided to feature pieces by American sculptor Jeff Koons in several of the main rooms, which detracted from the grandeur of the palace. My two favorite parts of the palace were the Hall of Mirrors and the grounds, which were spectacular, but the cold weather prevented us from exploring them more. Next time I visit Paris I’ll come in the spring so that I can see the gardens of Versailles in full bloom. That evening we walked through the Tuileries gardens and down the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. We found an original version theater on the Champs and saw High School Musical 3, and finished the night with a nutella crepe. On Sunday morning we ventured into the Cimetiere du Pere-Lachaise and saw the graves of Balzac, Eugene Delacroix, Proust, Oscar Wilde, Moliere, Gay-Lussac, Auguste Comte, Jim Morrison, Chopin, and painters Pissarro and LeBrun. We then made our way to Notre Dame, then to the Musee de Rodin and the Musee de l’Orangerie, which more than made up for the Louvre. The Orangerie features Monet’s Nympheas, or waterlilies. We ended the evening by eating dinner and seeing Vicky Christina Barcelona on the Champs.

Election Day (November 4): Since the US finally turned their clocks back November 2 (we turned our clocks back a week earlier) the east coast was again six hours behind Sevilla time. Since the majority of the west coast polls wouldn’t close until 11PM Eastern Time, we were prepared to stay up all night to watch the election results come in. My señora showed Kelsey and me several English news channels with non-stop election coverage and we explained to her how the US Electoral College system works. Like the rest of the world, my señora was cheering for Obama. Spain is the most left-leaning country in Europe, so it turns out that I’m studying in the right place. Fortunately, the election was a landslide, so I was able to catch a couple of hours of sleep. The following morning on the way to school, the election results had not completely been reported but all of the Spanish papers had declared Obama the winner. On the bus I was overcome with pride when the topic of everyone’s conversation was the American election. It is interesting to see everyday how much influence the United States has on other counties and how much other countries want to be in the US’s group of friends.

Lisboa, Portugal (November 7-9): After a five hour bus ride, we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge’s little sister and entered Lisboa. The city was beautiful, tucked in along the Rio Tajo, or Tagus River, a few miles upstream of the Atlantic Ocean. In the evening we visited the Castillo de San Jorge, which offered us great panoramic views of the city. We ate dinner at a little dinner near our hotel called “The Great American Disaster.” There we learned that the Portuguese aren’t quite as fond of Americans as the Spanish, which surprised me quite a bit. On Saturday we visited the Torre de Belem, which used to be completely surrounded by the river, and the Monasterio de Los Jerónimos. In the afternoon, we took the metro out to Colombo, the largest mall in the Iberian Peninsula. That evening we ate Portuguese restaurant in the Barrio Alto. I ordered frango (chicken) and potatoes. On Sunday morning we walked through the botanical gardens at the Parque de Eduardo VII before heading back to Sevilla.

Rome and Vatican City (November 12-17): After getting settled at our hostel, Mitch and I grabbed our map and headed out to explore Rome. We wondered around the Piazza della Repubblica and down the Via Nazionale until we came to the Imperial Forum museum. Mitch convinced me not to buy a guidebook, so we left empty handed and stumbled upon a bunch of ruins. Frustrated because I didn’t know what they were, we went back to the museum and bought a guidebook. We then explored the Imperial Forums, the Monument to Vittorio Emanuel (the first king of united Italy, the building is also known as the “typewriter”), Palazzo Venezia (seat of the government during the Mussolini dictatorship), and walked around the Roman Forum, Palatine Hill, and the Coliseum. We then found ourselves in Santa Maria in Cosmedin, a church that contains the relics of St. Valentine and the Bocca dell Verita (Mouth of Truth). Unfortunately it started raining when we were visiting the church, so we waited until it stopped then walked along the Circus Maximus, and hopped on the Metro to the Spanish Steps. In the evening ate dinner at a small restaurant (I had real Italian spaghetti!) near the foot of the Spanish Steps. After walking up the steps we came across “Blue Ice,” a gelato shop with soy gelato! After I ate chocolate, hazelnut, and cappuccino gelato, we walked to the Trevi Fountain, which was spectacular. We threw coins over our shoulders into the fountain, so hopefully we will return to Rome again soon. We slept in on Thursday morning, then made our way back to the Piazza della Repubblica and went into Santa Maria degli Angeli, a basilica designed by Michelangelo. However, when we came out of the basilica, it was pouring. Fortunately we had our umbrellas that we had bought in Paris, and I was determined to not let the rain stop us from exploring the city. On our way to Santa Maria Maggiore, yes, another church, we finally gave up and ducked into a cafeteria to wait out the rain. It never stopped, so cold and tired, we made our way back to the hostel. That evening we went out for pizza then saw Quantum of Solace. On Friday we got up early and took the Metro to the Vatican. We were told that the lines for the Vatican museums can get quite long, so we got there around 7:30AM. The doors don’t open until 8:45AM. There was no line yet, so we stopped by a little café for breakfast. The museums were, well, museums. The Raphael rooms were really nice and I finally got to see his School of Athens. The Sistine Chapel was a little bit disappointing; it wasn’t as cool as people make it out to be but Michelangelo’s frescoes were very cool. Apparently photos were prohibited in the chapel, but I secretly took some pictures of his famous Creation of Adam, so take a look at my pictures. After spending several hours at the museums, we ate lunch ate a little Italian restaurant and made our way over to St. Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican grottoes. Basically I had enough Catholicism in one day for the rest of my life. We left the Vatican and walked past the Castel Sant’ Angelo and the Palazzo di Giustizia, then through the Piazza Navona were we found ourselves in the middle of a bunch of hippies and student protesters. We quickly left the plaza and made our way to the Area Sacra and the Pantheon, where we again encountered more protesters, then to the Templo Adriano and the Palazzo Montecitorio (more protesters). Everywhere we seemed to go students were protesting, albeit peacefully. The police reluctantly let us cross their barricade and we made out way back up to the Spanish Steps (more gelato) and then walked through the Villa Borghese, the largest park in Rome. The next morning we went for a run back down and through the Villa Borghese then explored the Piazza del Popolo and walked all the way down the Via del Corso to the forums and the Coliseum. In the evening, we finally made it back to Sana Maria Maggiore and we ate at a small restaurant close to Termini, the main train station, and got a three course meal for only 8 euro! On Sunday morning, we finally decided to pay to get into the Coliseum and the Roman Forum. They were both pretty cool, but for 12 euro, definitely not worth it. We spent the rest of the day in the Trastevere area on the west side of the Tiber River, even managing to wonder outside the old Roman city walls. In the evening we again found ourselves eating gelato on the Spanish Steps, where we watched a movie crew set up to shoot a scene on the steps, then made our way back to the Trevi Fountain and threw some more coins into the fountain. We flew out of Rome on Monday morning and arrived in Madrid a little after noon. I then took the bus back to Sevilla and, as icing on my already church-filled weekend, sat next to three nuns.

Whew . . . the last month and a half flew by. In retrospect, all of my travels have been positive experiences but most of the places I thought I would enjoy the most were the biggest disappointments. Rome was remarkable, but I’d choose Paris over Rome any day. Lisboa is also a hidden gem. This weekend I will be traveling to Granada, the last Moorish stronghold in Spain until the Catholic Kings re-conquered Granada in 1492. Then on Sunday, Kelsey and I are celebrating Thanksgiving with our señora and her family. We’ll be preparing the whole meal, which could get quite interesting . . .

The remainder of my travel itinerary looks like this:
November 21-22: Granada, Spain
November 27-December 1: London, UK
December 4-8: Barcelona, Spain
December 12-14: Daytrip to Cordoba, ski in the Sierra Nevadas, or relax in Sevilla (pending my financial situation)
Decmeber 20: HOME!

I’ll try to blog more often over the next month because it’s kind of a pain in the butt writing so much at once, but I hope you enjoyed reading it. And I really don’t feel like re-reading this now, so please excuse any typos. Looking forward to seeing you in a month . . .

Jen

Bullfights galore (umm, gore)

Hmm, this is what happened last week:

Last Sunday, Mitch came down from Madrid and we were supposed to see a bullfight. It had been rainy and cool for most of the weekend, but by the afternoon of the bullfight, it was dry and had warmed up a little. We went to the Plaza de Toros and were anxious for the bullfight to begin. A little after 6PM, the matadors and picadors came out and were examining the dirt. By 6:15PM, we still hadn’t seen a bull. Then at 6:20PM, a guy came out with a sign saying that the matadors had unanimously decided to suspend the fight because of the weather conditions. Everyone in the crowd then proceeded to throw their seat cushions into the ring and boo. There was a long line for ticket refunds, so we walked around the city (I finally took pictures of Sevilla, so check those out) and got ice cream, then went back and got our refund.

Nothing too exciting happened between Monday and Thursday; I just tried to get ahead in my homework, went to class, and hung out with Mitch, who didn’t have class at all last week, so he stayed in Sevilla.

On Friday, Mitch and I went to Itálica, the first permanent Roman settlement in the Iberian Peninsula founded in 206 BC, which was about a 20 minute bus ride from Sevilla. Itálica was also the birthplace of Trajan, the first Roman emperor from a Roman province, and his successor, his son Hadrian. Unfortunately, my camera died halfway through the trip, but I did get some cool pictures of some of the old mosaics and thermal baths, but will have to steal pictures from Mitch so that you all can see the amphitheatre, which was built for 20,000-25,000 people.

On Saturday, we explored two of Sevilla’s main attractions: la Catedral (Cathedral) and the Real Alcázar (Royal Palace). The views from la Giralda, the tallest tower of the Cathedral, were breathtaking. La Giralda was built in 1184 AD and was originally part of a mosque. The present cathedral was constructed on the site of the mosque during fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and is currently the largest Roman Catholic cathedral in the world. The Real Alcázar also greatly exceeded my expectations. The gardens and grounds of the palace are absolutely beautiful. I am excited that I can get into the palace and gardens for free with my Pablo Olavide student ID, so I plan on going back and reading in the gardens.

Mitch left on Saturday night, but on Sunday, my roommate Kelsey and I went to see a novillada, a bullfight with young bulls and less experienced matadors. Even though we had never seen a bullfight before, we could clearly tell which matadors were better. There were three matadors that each killed two bulls. The first matador was not very good and the first bull suffered for awhile before it finally died. The second and third matadors were pretty good and both received standing ovations from the crowd. I took a lot of pictures and recorded several video clips, but please watch at your own risk as they are a bit bloody.

I didn’t have class today, so I worked ahead on some of my homework and got some last minute things together before I leave for Morocco on Wednesday morning! Oh, I also voted today! Make sure to look at all of my new pictures and I will blog again next week after I return from Africa!

Lluvia, lluvia, se marcha . . .

It’s been raining all morning and the temperature is only about 20°C (68°F), which by Sevilla standards is freezing. Kelsey and I stayed up until about 4:30-5AM to watch the presidential debate. We tried watching it on the local Spanish news station but it was dubbed so we watched live on cnn.com instead. Analyzing the debate from a Spanish perspective, Obama wins because McCain wants to continue Bush’s policy of ignoring Spain because they “betrayed” us in Iraq, and he thinks we are giving too much foreign aid to “countries who don’t even like us very much.”

I decided to blog today because I had a very interesting conversation with my mom at lunch. We started out talking about where to find clothing sales, and five minutes later we were talking about Ben Stiller. My fifty-five year old mom loves Ben Stiller, especially in Zoolander, and cannot wait to see Tropic Thunder when it premieres here in a couple of weeks. Please keep in mind she also likes “ra,” or rap, music and loves Eminem. We then discussed the machista society that exists in Spain and how there is a double standard for women. She said that most men here hate the Sex and the City series because the women have too much freedom and are too independent. She also brought up some derogatory Spanish terms including “hijo de puta” and “cuño.” We told her that “hijo de puta” is commonly used in the States but that “cuño” is a pretty taboo word. Feel free to look up the translations at your own risk. Stay tuned.

Vida en Sevilla

Vale, it’s been awhile since I’ve written anything, so I will do my best to recap what has happened in the last twelve days . . .

I’ve now officially had two weeks of class, well if you can even call it that because I only have classes two days a week. My Advanced Spanish class is very similar to any upper level Spanish grammar class in the U.S. We have daily homework assignments that are a bit monotonous but are a good review of grammar concepts I haven’t looked at since high school. It’s also helpful because we are learning the common Spanish idioms and picking up some other interesting cultural tidbits. I’m happy to report that the professor in my Mediterranean World and Spain class decided that the class conflicted too much with her schedule, so the university gave us a new professor. The five of us that decided not to drop the class were very relieved because we can now understand what is happening in class. The new professor still talks a bit fast, but when she notices our blank stares, she’ll slow down and ask one of us to paraphrase what she just said to make sure that we understand what she is talking about. Last Friday, our class took an excursion to the nearby town of Carmona, where there is an ancient Roman necropolis (cemetery) and other historical points of interest including a mini Giralda (giralda=weather vane, the famous one is in Sevilla) and several ancient fortresses that show traces of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish influence. I was hoping that the professor of my U.S.-European Relations since World War II class, one of two classes I am taking in English, would be Hispanic or at least European, but unfortunately she is an American who married a sevillano and has been living outside of the United States since 1989. Our class is suspicious that she works for the CIA because her list of previous residences includes Moscow, Switzerland, and about a dozen other places that I can’t remember. I actually really enjoy the class because it’s nice to catch up on American current events and I love the period of history that we are covering. I’ve been reading the local Spanish newspapers and it’s surprising how much space they devote to American affairs. Also, the debate tonight is televised on pretty much every major station and my roommate and I plan to watch it live at 3AM. My biochemistry class is, well, biochemistry. Actually it’s more like introduction to chemistry, but it’s nice because we don’t have too much work and almost one-third of our grade is based on class participation, and conveniently I know everything we have learned so far and am up in front of the class doing problems and/or explaining what is happening when our teacher can’t find the right words in English. My favorite class so far is History of Spanish Cinema since the Democracy. On Tuesday we watched our first film, La caza (1965) directed by Carlos Saura. The film is actually from before Franco’s death and shows a few signs of la censura. The title of the film was initially La caza de los Conejos (The Hunting of Rabbits), but in Spain conejos has a sexual connotation and was dropped from the title. The sound quality wasn’t great, and of course, it seemed like the actors were talking a 100 km/hr but I really enjoyed it. The film was very psychological and on a metaphorical level explored the corrupt and immoral values of the franquistas, Franco’s supporters.

Last week I also finalized my travel plans to London, Paris, and Rome! I will basically be traveling every weekend starting the last weekend in October to the first weekend in December, so I’ve been working ahead in all my classes so that I can enjoy my travel time. Here’s what my itinerary looks like:

October 8-13 Fez, Morocco
October 30-November 3 Paris, France
November 7-9 Lisboa, Portugal
November 12-17 Rome, Italy
November 21-22 Granada, Spain
November 28-December 1 London, UK

Oh, did I mention that I booked my roundtrip flights to Paris, Rome, and London for less than $300 USD total? I’m also trying to find cheap flights to either Berlin, Bern, Prague or Vienna and am trying to figure out a good weekend to get up to Barcelona to see all of Antonio Gaudi’s impressive architecture. The weekend I am in Paris also conveniently happens to be Le Salon du Chocolat, a giant chocolate exhibition in front of the Louvre, so I am planning on getting tickets to that! If anyone has any recommendations of where to visit, dine, etc, in any of these locations please let me know! I would really appreciate it!

Last Friday, the university hosted an intercambio event at a local flamenco bar and I meet a couple of Spaniards my age. It’s weird how obsessed everyone here is with the U.S.– everyone loves American movies and music, especially the younger generations. Oh, last Saturday my roommate and I caved in and ate at the TGI Friday’s in a nearby mall because we were craving American food. It was pretty darn good, but it still wasn’t quite the same and it’s a lot more expensive than back at home.

This weekend is also La Feria de San Miguel, and the last two bullfights of the season are this weekend. My roommate and I bought tickets on Thursday for the last fight of the season on Sunday night. I will post pictures as soon as I can, but am warning you now that the fights are pretty gruesome. Also, tomorrow night Real Betis, one of two First League fútbol teams in Sevilla (the other being Sevilla FC), plays Real Madrid tomorrow night in Sevilla, so a group of us is going to try to get cheap tickets to go to that, too.

Well, that’s about all I can think of right now. I will try to update my blog and post new pictures on either Sunday or Monday . . .

I've Only Been Here for Two Weeks?

I’ve only been in Sevilla for a week, but it feels like I’ve been here for a couple of months. When I wasn’t in class, I spent a lot of this past week exploring the city and am now able to navigate my way without a map. Here’s a recap of the past week:

Monday- In the morning, we took a placement exam at Pablo Olavide University (UPO). After the exam, we received a short tour of the campus. The campus opened in 2007 so everything is relatively new and several new buildings are being constructed. The natives don’t start class until October, but a lot of them were on campus studying to retake their final exams. Apparently if you don’t pass your final exams in June, you have the option to take them again in September, and according to our tour guide, this happens quite frequently. Later in the afternoon, a couple of my friends and I went swimming in our pool.

Tuesday- We had the morning free, so Kelsey and I slept in then explored the city. We had an orientation session in the evening and learned the results of our placement exam. I passed into the Advanced level. UPO put together a schedule for me based on classes I had listed that I was interested in. All of my classes were scheduled for Tuesday and Thursdays which means I have extra long weekends to travel! After some class changes, this is what my final schedule looks like:

	Tuesdays	Thursdays
9:00-10:20AM	Advanced Spanish (Spanish)
10:30-11:50AM	The Mediterranean World and Spain (Spanish)
1:30-2:50PM	U.S.-European Relations Since World War II (English)
4-6:50PM	History of Spanish Cinema (Spanish)	Biochemistry (English)

I am considering adding another class in Spanish during the 12-1:50PM block because all of my classes look like they are going to be pretty easy, and I really want to practice as much Spanish as possible.

Wednesday- First day of classes for everybody except for me. I slept in a little bit, went for a run in the park, and then jumped into the pool. Hey I’m not going to complain!

Thursday- I caught the bus at 8:01AM and was in my first classroom y 8:30AM. Note to self: Catch a later bus because there is no one else on campus that early! At 9AM, I had Advanced Spanish. I really like my professor and the overall course material will be a general but necessary review of Spanish grammar. At 10:30AM, I had The Mediterranean World and Spain. I think this is the first time my professor has ever taught anything because she seemed really nervous and spoke very quickly. I think professors here are, in general, more casual that back in the States, because she was wearing a bohemian skirt and a spaghetti tang top. I think the class sounds very interesting, but I’m a little nervous about this professor because the majority of our class could not understand her very well because she also has a very bad lisp. From 12-1:20PM, I sat in on the History of Spanish Art that UPO scheduled me to take. Unfortunately, I was placed in the English class because the Spanish version conflicts with my U.S.-European Relations class that I’ve been wanting to take since I saw the course options. Even thought I love art history, I decided to drop this course because I already have learned about most of the artists in a class at DU, and because I wanted to pick up another class in Spanish. I added the History of Spanish Cinema Since the Democracy, which I hope will help me improve my Spanish listening skills. The class meets Tuesdays for three hours, and each class, we watch a movie dating back to the rise of the Spanish democracy during the 1970s and analyze it. From 1:30-2:50PM, I would normally have U.S.-European Relations Since World War II, but the class doesn’t start until Tuesday, so from 11:30AM-3:30PM, I went to the library and looked up flights to London, Paris, Rome, and Barcelona. At 4PM, I had biochemistry. This class is in English, but I wish it was in Spanish because we spent the first session talking about covalent bonding. During the evening, I booked a flight from Sevilla to London for November 28-December 1 for only $113!

Friday- Everyone else had Monday’s class today, so I got up, went for a run through Los Remedios, a neighborhood across the Guadalquivir River, then to the ISA office to turn in a 100ε deposit for a trip to Morocco for five days in October. Mitch decided to visit for the weekend, so I meet him at the bus station around 5:30PM. I showed him some of the highlights of Sevilla, we got some ice cream, then he meet my host family and ate dinner with us. He was able to stay at one of my friend’s apartments, which was pretty convenient for him.

Saturday- Kelsey and I woke up around 6:20AM and after walking a couple of blocks, took a taxi to the train station, where we meet up with Mitch and some of our other friends. We all took the 7:55AM train to Cadíz on the southern coast of Spain on the Atlantic Ocean. We arrived in Cadíz around 9:50AM and by 10:30AM, we were all laying on the beach. The water was a bit chilly but felt nice after sitting out in the sun. We stayed on the beach until about 3:30PM, then left to explore downtown Cadíz and get some ice cream. We all caught the 6PM train and were back in Sevilla before 8PM.

Sunday- Mitch and I had breakfast/lunch in a pastry shop then explored the Nervión neighborhood, renowned for its shops. We made our way across the city and Mitch left for Madrid on a 5PM bus. Today was extremely hot–38ºC or 100°C. Oh, everything except for cafes and restaurants in Sevilla shuts down on Sundays. It’s a little bit weird and I’m not sure if it is economically efficient, but Spaniards do love their vacation days. I don’t have class tomorrow, and I’m not sure what I’m going to do with all of my newfound time–pick up flamenco dancing I suppose.

I posted pictures from Cadíz, so take a look at those! I hope to have pictures from Sevilla up sometime this week. More from Spain later . . .

Sevilla!

I finally arrived in Sevilla at about 7PM this evening! I haven't posted in awhile so I will recap this past week:

Wednesday-Wednesday morning we had a guided tour of El Museo de Prado. The tour was limited to the works of El Greco, Diego Velazquez, and Francisco de Goya. My favorite painting was Las Meninas by Velazquez, one of his most important works, for el Rey Felipe IV. We only spent about two hours at the museum but I could have wondered around all day. I'm planning on visiting again when I am back in Madrid. After El Prado, we walked across the city to el Palacio Real, the home of the Spanish royal family until 1931. For lunch a few girls and I ate at a Cruzcampo, a Spanish restaurant chain, and I tried paella, a traditional Spanish dish consisting of rice, meat, vegetables, and occasionally seafood. I order "paella de pollo," chicken paella, and it was delicious!

Thursday-Our group checked out of our hotel in Madrid and headed for El Valle de los Caídos y El Escorial in the mountains just outside of Madrid. The temperature at El Valle de los Caídos was about ten degrees cooler than in Madrid and felt really nice. None of us knew what El Valle de los Caídos (The Valley of the Fallen) was, and we were in for a surprise. It is a giant monument of a cross, 150 meters tall, built by los republicanos for Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War. The monument also happens to be the burial site of the infamous Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. Franco had wanted to be entombed in Monasterio del Escorial, the summer royal palace and the resting place of all of the Spanish monarchs since Felipe II in the sixteenth century, but the Catholic Church would not allow it because he was not from a royal bloodline. Instead, he ordered the construction of a giant monument in the mountains about 10 km from El Escorial so that he could be higher than the former kings and queens of Spain, signifying that he was more important. The monument and the Basilica de Santa Cruz at the base of the cross were constructed by los republicanos, the losers of the Spanish Civil War. The monument is quite controversial because for many Spaniards it glorifies Franco’s rule, which is why I am assuming we were never taught about it in Spanish class. The monument also serves as a tomb for the more than 40,000 soldiers who died during the Spanish Civil War, hence the name Valle de los Caídos. After, we toured El Escorial, the former summer home of the Spanish royalty. The actual palace is only a small part of the building which consists of a boarding school, a monastery, and the second most important religious library outside of the Vatican. We then departed for Toledo, which is about an hour south of Madrid.

Friday-We had a guided tour of Toledo that included stopping at a fifteenth century church constructed during the rein of Isabel and Ferdinand-the Catholic Kings, a twelfth century synagogue, and a mosque. We also saw El Greco’s famous painting, The Burial of the Count of Orgaz, which was spectacular.

Saturday-We left Toledo around 11AM for Sevilla. In Spain there are laws regulating how long a bus driver can operate a bus without stopping. For every three hours on the road, the driver needs to take an hour break. So somehow, our five hour trip took eight hours and we arrived in Sevilla around 7PM. It was really awkward because when our bus pulled into a plaza, all of our host families were waiting for us. Kelsey and I met our mom and her 32 year-old daughter, Paz, and after packing our luggage into Paz’s car and climbing into our mom’s car, we finally went to our new home. Our house is very nice; it’s actually part of a floor of an apartment building, as are most homes in Spain. We each have our own room and bathroom and a pool! We also have two older brothers who we will meet tomorrow, and two birds. At about 10PM, we ate dinner. Dinner consisted of Spanish tortillas (similar to an egg and potato omelet but much more appetizing), san moreno (similar to tomato soup), pollo relleno (kind of like a chicken sausage-chicken mixed with other meats), and of course pan (bread)! For dessert, we had fresh fruit. They showed us where all of the food was in the house and my mom already has a stock of soy milk and yogurt for me! We all talked quite a bit at dinner (with some difficulty) and neither my mom nor Paz speaks English, which is great because it will really force me to practice Spanish.

More from Sevilla later . . .

Also, I finally posted my pictures, so take a look!