Barcelona es de Puta Madre

 The past week has been full of adventures all around Spain.  For fear of this blog entry being intolerably long, I will try to keep my anecdotes brief and entertaining.  

Last Friday, at an ungodly early hour, my friend Heather Scott and I boarded a plane headed for Barcelona.  While the flight is only about 50 minutes, plane tickets were cheaper than train tickets and comparable to bus tickets.  We landed in Barcelona, took a cab to our hostel, and prepared ourselves to explore an entire city in approximately 40 hours.  Our hostel In Barcelona was my first true hostel experience.  Communal bathrooms, twelve beds in one co-ed bedroom, and an extra fee to have sheets on your bed.  Ew.  High maintenance Emily aside, I ended up liking the hostel experience.  We met young and interesting people from all over the world and had culturally enriching experiences.  (Even though none of the electrical outlets worked, thus preventing me from using my hair straightener...)  Here is a picture of our bedroom in the hostel. 

 The first thing we did in Barcelona, on the advice of many many people, was go to La Sagrada Familia.  La Sagrada Familia is one of Gaudi's most famous works in Barcelona. It's a giant temple that has been under construction since 1882 and it's not expected to be completed until at least 2025 ( time for completion varies depending on different sources of information).  

The cathedral was absolutely breathtaking.  Heather and I spent more than three hours there, just admiring the detail.  The stained glass windows are the most recent installation of la Sagrada Familia.  My parents didn't even get to see it when they went to Barcelona two years ago.  

After la Sagrada Familia, we went to Parc Guell, another one of Gaudi's artistic wonders.  The park reminded me of a scene out of the Grinch Who Stole Christmas because the buildings looked almost like cartoons.  Parc Guell is famous for Gaudi's mosaic artwork. 

Friday night was filled with exploring the city, getting horribly lost, and eventually ending up at a gay bar.  We woke up early Saturday morning and headed to the market on La Rambla.  The market was beautiful, with isles and isles of fresh fruit, nuts, chocolates, meat, flowers, and vegetables.  We spent an hour just walking through the market and buying some snacks to eat.  Heather was in heaven in the chocolate section. 

The we walked down to the Barcelona harbor and a saw my first Spanish body of water.  We didn't have time to go to the beach, so this was the closest that I got. 

 Saturday night was an adventure all on its own.  After dinner, we wanted to go to a fun place for drinks, dancing, etc.  But neither of us knew of a fun place to go.  We had an inspired idea to hail a taxi and ask him to take us to a fun place where young people go out.  Good music, dancing, etc.  Without hesitation, we were off, weaving in and out of pedestrians like he really knew where to go.  After much anticipation, we stopped in front of the Hard Rock Cafe, Barcelona.  Thank you, Mr. Cab Driver.  What an interesting and exotic place for American tourists to go.  After that, we went back to our original plan of wandering the streets listening for music.  

Monday morning we boarded a plane back to Madrid.  We had Monday and Tuesday off because of Columbus Day, which is a huge deal in Spain.  They call it the National Spanish Holiday and everything is closed.  So Tuesday we decided to go to the quaint mountain town of Buitraigo, about 90 minutes outside of Madrid.  To make a long story (and a very long afternoon) short, our guidebooks lied.  I do not think that Buitraigo has ever seen tourists before, nevertheless Americans.  We brought lunch for a picnic because we were under the false impression that it would be possible to leave to city and actually get into the mountains.  WRONG.  There is a huge Moorish wall surrounding the city.  Where there is no wall, there is a river.  The guidebook also said that there is a Picasso museum in this town.  WRONG again.  This "museum" is a room in the basement of a house.  Picasso's barber donated all of the artwork that he was given by Picassi to this "museum."  If I were a painter, I wouldn't give very many pieces to my barber.  Picasso had a similar idea. 

The city was pretty, but we took the 10:30am bus there and had to take the 4:30bus home.  We saw the entire town in less than an hour, ate our picnic for another hour, and were ready to leave by 2pm. We sat in a coffee shop until they kicked us out and then we sat at the bus stop.  Our adventure to Buitraigo was different than we had originally planned, but we created memories all the same. 

La Corrida de Toros and OKTOBERFEST!

Hello! I am terribly sorry that it has been so long since my last blog post.  I have been very busy and blogging is more time consuming than I expected it to be.  To fill you in on the past two weeks, I have to start with one of the most disturbing and cultural activities that there is here in Madrid. La Corida de Toros (a bull fight) is the most stereotypical Spanish thing to do.  And since I fully support being a tourist, (and the flashing "American" sign that is constantly above my head) I attended a bull fight.  I had NO IDEA what I was in for.  I thought that the matador would shake a sheet at a bull for a couple minutes and that would be that.  WRONG.  During every bull fight, the matadors kill six bulls.  One at a time.

  First, they taunt it a bit and get it really angry.  Then a man on a horse comes out and stabs in in the back so that the blood starts to run.  

Then they put these colorful hooks in its back to make it more angry.  Then, the real matador comes out to finish him off.  And they do that exact same process six times!  During the first bull fight, I was mortified by all the blood and really felt sorry for the bull.  And I don't even like animals.  During the second and third fights, I thought it was pretty interesting to watch.  By the fourth, fifth, and sixth bull fights, I was bored and tired of watching the same thing over and over again.  It lose its shock factor I suppose.  But I took lots of pictures and affirmed my status as a tourist. 

 

I also visited Madrid's modern art museum, La Reina Sofia.  I enjoyed the modern art museum much more than the Prado museum, especially since I was able to see Picasso's Guernica.   I have studied this painting in school before and it was truly amazing to see it in real life.  The painting takes up an entire wall and it is an impressive sight.  Pictures were not allowed in the museum, so here is my sad attempt at discretely capturing Guernica:

 

 

Notice the arms of my fellow museum attendees.   The picture was taken from hip-height to avoid being yelled at in Spanish by the mean security guards.

School is going well.  I finished the month-long intensive on Wednesday and started my full course load today.  I am still getting a fell far my classes, but right now I feel like they will be hard.  I am taking Spanish classes with native speakers and I feel that I am not even close to their level.  

 

Also, On Thursday, I moved to a new homestay.  I had been having some issues both with my roommate and with the host family, so I was relocated to a new family and I love it here.  At my old house, I shared a tiny room with another girl and we had very different sleep schedules.  In my new house, I have my own room which is bigger than the room that I used to share.  Also, the food at my new house is amazing.  My host father is from Syria, so we have a variety of food.  I could not be happier with my new homestay. 

This past weekend, I ventured to Munich, Germany for Oktoberfest.  I met up with a large group of DU students who are currently studying abroad all over Europe and we had an amazing time.  On Friday night, we walked from our hotel to Oktoberfest to get the lay of the land.  Oktoberfest is a city all on its own.  There are amusement park rides, stores, food, and of course, beer tents.  

The beer tents are giant temporary structures that hold 3,000 to 6,000 people.  In order to get a table in a beer tent, you need to arrive early and wait in line.  We got to the Augustiner beer tent at 6:45am, ready for the day.  We got a table in the tent and had our first beer at 9am, when they opened the doors. 

 

The rest of Saturday was filled with great food (giant pretzels and amazing half chickens) Meeting new friends (I talked to people from all over the world, including a couple who don't speak a word of English OR Spanish...) and a lot of laughter.  

 

 

Also, I bought a hat, which was clearly not a decision made while I was entirely sober.  It reminded me of the Harry Potter Sorting Hat and I loved it.  My mom says that I should never wear hats.  I am starting to agree...

 

 Next weekend I am off to Barcelona for a weekend trip with some friends from my program in Madrid and I am sure that I will have some good stories about Barca.  I promise not to wait too long before I write again.  Dos Besos!

Studying is Really Getting in the way of my Study Abroad Experience

I am sorry that I have not updated my blog in over a week.  This past week was MIDTERMS for our month-long intensive Spanish class.  I had two midterms, one for each of my classes.  And I actually had to study for them.  Thus, I do not have too many stories from the past week.  Last weekend, I went back to Parque de Buen Retiro to sit in the grass with some friends and "study." It was a beautiful day and we got minimal studying done. 

 

This is a picture of the lake at Buen Retiro.  You can rent little row boats and go out on the lake, but I have yet to do that. The water is really nasty and would most likely give me jam hands.

I ended up doing well on my midterms.  Well, I did REALLY well on my written test (97%) and not quite as well on my oral test (85%).  I am significantly better at reading and writing than I am at speaking.  I can formulate sentences in my head, conjugate verb correctly on paper in any tense, use complex parts of speech.  But, when asked a question, I turn into a complete and total spaz.  I simply cannot formulate answers fast enough and I revert back to very basic Spanish abilities.  Unfortunately, our oral exam consisted of our professors asking us questions in front of a panel who were grading our responses.  Terrifying.  However, according to my grades, I was able to hold my own.  

In Spain, the grading system is different from that of the US.  Instead of getting letter grades (A, B, C, D, F), we get number grades (0 being the lowest and 10 being the highest).  Getting a 5 or better is good.  We will wait to see how the grades convert back to the US. 

This weekend, 8 of my friends from the University of Denver were in Madrid and I got to play tour guide to show them around my city.  On Friday night, we went to dinner and then went to Kapitol.  Kapitol is a discoteca in downtown Madrid that is notorious for providing crazy nights.  It is a seven story club and each floor has a different theme.  We watched Spanish karaoke, visited the mojito floor, and danced until our feet felt as though they would fall off. 

 

It was a fantastic night (and morning...we didn't leave until around 5am, when the party was just getting started).  Now I really feel like I have experienced Spanish night life.  And I hope I showed my friends the real Madrid.  

The next morning, we went out to breakfast for the typical Spanish breakfast of churros con chocolate.  I have been searching for a place that serves good churros con chocolate, and on Sunday morning, I finally found it.  The chocolate is thick, almost the consistency of hot fudge.  And the churros were warn and delicious.  In Spain, they do not have cinnamon sugar on them like they  do in Mexico.  It was a nutritious and delicious breakfast. 

Later that morning, I went to El Rastro again to do some discount shopping.  I bought new sunglasses (5 euro), a ring that immediately turned my finger green, but is very cute (1 euro) and a scarf that you can see in the picture below (5 euro).  

Then I met up with some friends to go to Parque Oeste, where there is an ancient egyptian temple.  Madrid is full of parks. 

There is a gondola ride that goes from Parque Oeste to Casa de Campo (11 minute ride) that shows some great views of the city.  We were huge tourists and took the gondola ride on Sunday afternoon. 

Now we are in another week of school and classes.  We only have seven days of class left before finals, and I am still recovering from midterms.  I built my schedule for the semester (after the month-long intensive ends) and I got a great schedule.  I am in class from 8:30am until 11:30am everyday and then I have the afternoons free to explore Madrid.  I do not have class on Fridays, so I have been trying to plan out my travel.  I am going to Munich October 1-3, Salamanca October 22-24, Morocco October 27-November 1, France November 5-8, Dublin November 11-14, and Granada November 19-21. And I still want to find some spare time to go to Barcelona and Valencia.  It is going to be a busy next few months!

I will write again soon.  Hasta Luego!

Settling into a Routine

It has been almost a week since my last blog post and I have finally fallen into a routine here in Madrid.  On Mondays and Wednesdays, I have class at 10am, so I have to leave for the metro at 9am.  First I have my language class, then I have my culture and conversation class, and then I have my language class again.  On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, I have class at 8:30am, but I get out earlier in the afternoons.  After class, I ride the metro home to eat a late and much anticipated lunch with my family, and then I take a nap (I truly appreciate that naps are so acceptable here).  I wake up around 7pm to do my homework, check my email, etc.  We eat dinner around 10 or 10:30pm and after dinner I meet friends to go out.  It is nice to have a schedule to follow. 

Monday was my friend Heather's 20th birthday (Heather Scott, not Heather my roommate).  We went out to celebrate at a place called the Wine Museum.  It was very classy and a fun way to celebrate her birthday.  On Tuesday, Heather, my roommate, and I explored the city and ventured down to El Parque del Buen Retiro.  

El Parque del Buen Retiro is a huge park that was built in 1505. Heather and I almost got lost exploring this massive park, but we made it home safely.  On Wednesday night, Sarah, Kait, and I took a free salsa lesson at a bar called Cibeles.  Our instructor was Cuban and could move his hips faster than Shakira.  I tried to keep up, but I don't know if I would have been able to do so even if the lesson was in English.  I don't know very many dancing terms in espanol.  We were matched with random partners and I successfully made a fool of myself in front of all of them.  It was a fantastic night. 

After the salsa lesson, we stopped for a drink at the oldest bar in Madrid.  It is similar to and Irish Pub. At the pub, we met a group of Spanish chicos and it was one of my first experiences talking to Spaniards that were not my host family or people from school.  I think I held my own and between my Spanish speaking abilities and their English speaking abilities, we were able to adequately communicate. 

The boys were from the Canary Islands and were very nice.  They offered to show us around Madrid Friday.  Friday afternoon after we got out of class, our school took us to El  Museo del Prado, the famous museum in Madrid.  

We took a guided tour (In Spanish) of paintings by El Greko, Goya, and Velázquez. And that is all that we saw in a 2 hour tour.  Three artists.  The tour guide was a Chatty-Cathy, so I think that I'll have to go back on my own to see the rest of the hundreds of pieces housed there.  After the museum, we stopped to get lunch at a spanish restaurant.  It was rather uneventful, except for my new friend that I found in my paella.  

It was a whole tiny crab.  I had no idea how to eat it, so I just set it on the side of my plate and let it watch me eat.  After lunch, I went home, took my daily siesta, and met my new friend Alston for dinner.  We went to a cute Italian restaurant over-looking the Royal Palace.  It was a beautiful view.  Then Kait, Sarah and I met up with the Spaniards from Wednesday night to show us around Madrid.  We didn't go to the bars until 2am and we stayed out until 5am.  And it was "an early night".  Oy.  I'm not too exhausted today, but I need to nap to gear up for tonight.  Tonight is La Noche en Blanco (The Night in White) which is a huge festival that happens once a year.  Everything stays open all night, including theaters, museums, concert venues, stores, restaurants, bars, everything.  And entrance to everything is free.  It is going to be an eventful night.  I'll write soon to tell you all about it.  

Hope everything is good back home.  

Dos besos!

Holy Toledo!

I last posted a blog entry on Friday afternoon and since then, I have experienced my first weekend in Madrid and have had my first taste of the Spanish night life.  I now officially understand the need for a siesta every afternoon.  It is because Spaniards stay out until 6am every night.  On Friday night, I met up with a couple friends to go to a club that is a few blocks from my apartment.  Google maps in hand, (a neon, flashing TOURIST sign over my head would have had the same effect) I was ready for the night.  On our way to the club, at around midnight, there were so many small children out playing.  I mean, I don't like children to begin with, but shouldn't these three and four-year-olds be in bed at midnight?  I had a 7pm bedtime until high school.  I think that is how Spaniards learn to stay up so late...they start this ridiculous sleep regiment at birth and never have to adjust.  At the club, we danced to a combination of Lady Gaga, Spanish music, and the occasional Train song.  Hey Soul Sister can sincerely kill the vibe on the dance floor.  We all bought exactly two drinks because drinks run 8 to 10 euro a pop.  It was a fun night overall, but we had to be up early the next morning to go to Toledo, so we ONLY stay out until around 2:30am.

Toledo is one of the most beautiful cities that I've ever seen.  Spaniards call it the City of Three Cultures because for hundreds of years, Christians, Muslims, and Jews lived together in this one small city without any conflict.  The entire city is surrounded by el Rio Tajo, which serves as a natural moat the protect the city.  There is also a wall that surrounds the city.  

What amazed me about Toledo was how old everything is.  This is a city that has remained virtually unchanged since the 1400s (except for the addition of plumbing and electricty).  The United States wasn't even discovered at that time.  We took a tour of the city, explored a church and a synagogue, and saw the masterpiece of El Greco.  Then we ate some lunch (I had a calamari sandwich...muy rico) and tried to do some shopping (but all of the stores were closed because of la siesta).

On Saturday night, we ventured to the clubs once again, this time without my google maps.  In the main plaza in Madrid, there are club promoters who try to get people to come to their club by offering them discounts on the cover fee on on drinks.  The cover fee runs around 15 euro and drinks are very expensive as well.  We spent the evening following club promoters around downtown Madrid.  After 3 hours, we had been to 5 different clubs, danced our hearts out, and had extremely tired feet.  We found one club (that was most likely a gay bar) where they played Madonna, Cindy Lauper and a variety of fantastic 80s dance songs.  It was a fantastic night in Madrid.  

Every Sunday morning, there is a giant flea market call El Rastro.  It is a terrifying experience where thousands of bargain shoppers crowd the streets of Madrid to find the best deals.  Vendors line their booths up on the side of the street and floods of shoppers fill the space in between.  Anything that you could ever want, you can find at El Rastro (however, much of the treasures at El Rastro appear to have been pick-pocketed off of American tourists).  I bought a white and grey flowered dress for only 5 euro (Even the flea market is expensive in Europe).  

Later that day, we went shopping at more traditional stores.  There is a shopping section of El Plaza del Sol, which is 10 minutes from my apartment.  I bought a skirt from Zara that looks very European.  I'll fit right in.  For dinner, the entire family came over to eat homemade cannoli spinach pasta.  All of the Spaniards talked very fast and the three Americans sat at the end of the table in silence, simply trying to follow the conversation.  

It was an eventful weekend.  Good thing that I have the week to recover and catch up on sleep!  I'll write again soon.

Besos.

La Latina Turner

After 2 days in Madrid, I have finally gotten over my jet lag and I am having a wonderful time. It seems funny to write this blog in English because since I've been here, it has been all Spanish all the time.  My brain is definitely switching into Spanish mode now. 

After I wrote my last post, we had a meeting with ISA and took a brief tour of the city.  Imagine 50 American and Canadian students who are extremely jetlagged, on a bus being talked at in Spanish.  Needless to say, there were quite a few heavy eyelids on that bus tour.  Then we went to our homes and ate dinner with our families.  We had a "salad" consisting of tomatoes, sardines, and pomegranate seeds.  It wasn't exactly my cup of tea, but I smiled and cleaned my plate because I was famished.  It is going to take me a while to get used to the Spanish meal schedule.  My host family does not eat breakfast, lunch is at 3pm, and dinner is at 11pm.  Right now it is about 1:30pm and I am so hungry that my computer is beginning to look like a tasty snack.  Wednesday night was an early night because we had to be at school at 8am and we were all exhausted from the plane ride.  

On Thursday morning, I ventured into the metro system to get to school.  It takes me about an hour to get to campus.  First, we walk to the blue line, which is about 2 minutes from our apartment.  We take that one stop and transfer to the red line.  Then we take the red line 6 stops and transfer to the yellow line.  Then we take the yellow line three stops. Then we walk about 15 minutes to the campus of Nebrija, our school.  After two days, I feel like a pro at navigating the subway.  Once we got to school, we immediately took our placement tests to determine which level of Spanish class we would take.  The test was rough, but I suppose that it is supposed to be hard so that they can accurately determine your level.  At one point during the test, a woman comes and pulls me out of class, brings me into a tiny room and starts asking me all of these questions about my family and my interests and travel plans.  I was horribly confused about why she singled me out to interrogate me.  Then I continued to take the placement test.  Apparently, there was an oral component to the test that I had no idea about.  The woman was not simply curious about my interests; in fact, she was judging my speaking ability.  Ooops.  

After the test, we had some free time and I took my subway route in reverse to get beck downtown where I live.  My neighboring is in el centro, where there are many tapas bars and a bustling night life.  My neighborhood is called La Latina.  However, many of the locals think that they are extremely clever and call my neighborhood La Latina Turner.  When I first heard that I laughed for a solid 5 minutes.  During my free time I bought a cell phone to make local calls.  My original plan was simply to buy a sim card for a phone that I brought from home.  However, when you buy a sim card in Spain it comes with a free phone.  So I am using that phone as a prepaid phone.  It does the job...calls and texts.  No camera, no internet, no email.  After my cell phone excursion we had another meeting at the ISA office, which is in the main plaza in the neighborhood next to La Latina, Plaza del Sol.  The meeting last 4 hours in a hot and crowded room.  We had to take another test that will monitor our progress over the next four months.  We will take the test again at the end of the program so we can see how much our Spanish improved.  

At about 6pm, a group of us found a place to sit down and have a drink and some tapas to recharge before continuing the explore the city.  A discovery that I made about Madrid is that there are characters out in the street and the plaza.  When I say characters, I do not mean people with  vibrant personalities.  I am talking about full on Disney characters.  Yesterday I met Bart Simpson, Mickey Mouse, and Hello Kitty.  I paid a euro to take a picture with Hello Kitty.  I have no yet figured out why there are people in  full costume when the temperature is around ninety degrees, but it keeps things interesting.  A couple of us took a brief detour to check out H&M, but I didn't buy anything there.  

Then I went back to my apartment.  For dinner we had homemade pizza, which was delicious.  Then some friends came to pick me up to go out for a drink.  We walked around for a while until we found a hookah bar.  Sat on the patio and talked to some of the locals for a few hours.  I went to sleep around 3am and woke up at 7am for class at 8:30.  I do not know how Spanish people get enough sleep to function.  

My first day of class this morning was great.  I tested into intermediate Spanish, which I am very happy about.  There are about 8 different levels and I am right in the middle.  For the next month, I will take two classes: Spanish Grammar and Spanish Culture.  I really enjoy my grammar class; however, the professor of my culture class speaks at about a million miles a minutes.  I have a hard time keeping up.  We have both of these classes every morning and have class from 8:30 until either 1 or 2:30pm.  I just got home and now I am going to eat lunch.  I cannot wait.  

Tomorrow we are taking a day trip to Toledo.  I'll write soon to tell you all about it. Hopefully not all of my blog posts will be this long.  It has been a very busy 48 hours. 

24 hours later...

I made it to Madrid in one piece, giraffe suitcases and all.  

This time Monday, I did not know that I would be embarking on the longest day of my life.  It all started on Monday night when I couldn't sleep because of the anticipation.  My mom and I left for the airport at 3:15am on Tuesday morning, running on adrenaline and nothing else.  While waiting in line for the check-in counter to open, (we were at the airport at 3:45am. The airport does not open until 4:30am) I met another girl who is studying abroad in Seville, Spain.  I was struggling to keep control of my brightly colored Vera Bradley duffel bag and my two giant pink giraffe print suitcases, all the while the giant "AMERICAN" sign was flashing above my head.  She was carrying a backpack-that's it.  We would both be in Spain for 4 months.  I suppose that we simply have different packing styles.  I checked my baggage, said goodbye to my mother, and ventured off through security.  

The first leg of my flight was uneventful.  Everyone on the plane seemed to suffer from narcolepsy and fell asleep before the plane was off the ground.  Everyone except for me.  I sat next to a couple who I can only assume were newly-weds.  They were "touchy-feely," to say the least.  I landed in Washington, DC with no plans on how I would pass the time during my 6-hour layover.  I had snacks, I read my books, I played on my computer.  It was a long 6 hours.  At hour 4.5, my roommate, Heather, landed in DC.  We introduced ourselves to each other and became best friends right away.  It helped that she agreed that Subway should be our final American meal.  Sandwiches in hand, we boarded the Aer Lingus (Ireland's National Airline) flight to Madrid.  

Once again, I sat on the plane bright-eyed and bushy-tailed while all of the people around me slept.  We had tiny TVs on the seat back in front of us, which was convenient for those of us who have plane insomnia (self-diagnosed, and not a real condition).  I watched 5 movies, all of which were terrible.  And the woman who sat next to me was rude.  And snored.  But the plane ride was once again uneventful.  

Once in Spain, I made it through customs unscathed.  They didn't even check my visa, which was a pain in the butt to get.  But, if I hadn't gotten the visa, then they definitely would have asked to see it.  I met up with other ISA Madrid students (5 of us total) and some ISA staff members who dropped us off at our respective host  families.  The apartment in which Heather and I are living is amazing! The location could not be better (in the oldest part of Madrid, directly above many tapas bars and restaurants) and my host parents seem very nice (they do not speak English, but they are willing to repeat themselves and speak "mas despacio" for me).  

Now Heather and I are "napping" until lunch.  However, I have the inability to sleep.  Hopefully tonight I will sleep well and my jetlag won't slow me down too much.  We have orientation tonight at 6pm just around the corner from my apartment.  So the adventure begins and I am extremely excited and relieved to finally be here.  I'll write again soon.