Whatcha thinkin'? BARCELONA.

[pretend the font is Trebuchet]

I could not have planned a better way to spend my last full week in Spain than I did this past week! Monday I actually don't remember anything about...oh, it was a pretty normal day. Class, shopping, FHE. Tuesday I went into Madrid in the morning to do some souvenir shopping because I was wa-hay behind on that. It was SO fun to have some solo-time in Madrid, that is such a wonderful city. I don't know very much of it but what I do know, I love. In one of the souvenir shops, the guy working there (Martín) and I got talking and he apparently lived in Connecticut for a couple years! He would go down to Orange, NJ because his friend played piano at a jazz club there. He plays guitar in a band and they were gonna play in a bar that night in Madrid, but I had to politely decline the invitation:) Oh, Spaniards. After a couple of hours of shopping (and picking up the tickets for MUSE this Wednesday!!! Ahhhhhhh!) I went home for lunch. Jenessa, Pepita, and I planned out what meals we want before we go home, so that day we ate a LOVELY tortilla de asparagos. Ooooh man. I am gonna miss all this olive oil. After lunch, Jenessa and I were right out the door to go with a group back to Madrid for more shopping. Man. Such. Great. Shopping. Later that night, a few of us went out with the group director for tapas at a supa-swank restaurant in the Fifth-Avenue-type section of Madrid. Tapas are a tradition we definitely need in America.

Okay okay. Madrid is great, but last week we went on THE best excursion we've gone on, hands down. Manos. Abajo. Wednesday and Saturday were mostly lost to travel, but we still managed to get a lot in. We stopped in Zaragoza for a rest to see the cathedral there-as amazing as Burgos was on the outside, this cathedral is just a beautiful on the inside. Wow. There were two twin baldaquinos, the canopy type structures, that were modeled after Bernini's in Saint Peter's Basilica. There was so much beautiful stonework and intricate carvings and detailing. It was phenomenal. From there we went to Montserrat, a mountain near Barcelona with a monastery. We spent quite a bit of time there before we could get dinner, so it was nice to not have to rush through everything. The weather that day was pretty awful so we couldn't see any of the surrounding landscape which is apparently phenomenal, but it was pretty sweet to be that high in the mountains and surrounded by fog. We were literally in a Spanish cloud. Being enveloped by such thick tinieblas, it literally felt like the edge of the world. Because we were at the edge of the cliffs, the land just drops off and the fog was so thick it created a pure white backdrop. Really great for pictures:) I have six weeks at home with nothing to do...so pictures WILL be coming. Promise:)

Thursday: BARCELONA. Oh man!!!!! The city of Gaudí. We started out the day with a guided tour of el Parque Güell, a park designed by Gaudí. Honestly, I could never get enough of his architecture. He was a very religious man, so his art hearkens back to nature. There are no straight lines in nature, so you are hard pressed to find prominent straight lines in any of his designs. To start, the columns supporting the covering over the pathway were inclined to provide greater functionality and formed from irregular stone, all to integrate itself into the nature around it. At one point, there's a carob tree just growing out of the middle of the path. Architecture: consider yourself integrated.

We saw the park backwards, but at the entrance of the park, there is a huge, beautiful, tile-covered lizard sculpture and the sweetest front staircase ever. At the top of the stairs in the entrance to the park there is a patio supported by columns (the Sala Hipóstila, or hypostyle, meaning lots and lots of columns, á la Egyptians), and the bottom half of these columns are covered in mosaics formed from irregular ceramic mosaic tiles. To greater emphasize the feeling of light and darkness, the tile pieces on the columns closer to the back wall are smaller and closer together, while the tiles on the front columns are gradually larger and less dense. Ther is so much symbolism in his work, and most of it is applied by the viewer. He didn't always design with specific symbolic representations in mind. In keeping with the light theme, there are four suns, one for each season, and several moons in the ceiling. He used broken ceramic dishes for his tiles, and in some places on the ceiling there are whole plates or teacups or whatnot just shoved in there.

Just outside the entrance to the park is one of Gaudí's little houses. It felt like a Dr. Seuss house! It was vibrant and multi-colored on the outside with a brilliant blue on the inside. No straight walls, of course. It's all just so intriguing and beautiful. We were diggin on Gaudí after the park, but from there we went to La Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's cathedral. I am SO going back in 2026 when that sucker is done, it was AMAZING, even in its incomplete form. In the morning we just saw the exterior but we went back later in the afternoon to see the interior. The outside is SO breathtaking! Having seen soooo many traditional cathedrals by this point, it was interesting to see one that diverts do far from the norm. Construction on the cathedral began in 1882, but you would NEVER know to look at it. When Gaudí was beginning his cathedral, he was in an age where if a cathedral wasn't finished, it was very very nearly finished. Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals take centuries to complete, so Gaudí really broke new ground by starting a new one. One key difference that I noticed is that the rose window, the artistic focal point of the Gothic cathedral and the symbolic representation of Mary, is covered on the outside by sculptures. In Gothic cathedral, the rose window shed the most light into the cathedral and was by far the most important source of light. From the inside, however, we could see the stained glass perfectly! Such beautiful colors. Interestingly enough, there are no figures in the stained glass. Just pieces of colored glass, their light reflecting brilliantly on the floor. There were a few windows with glass partitioned for stained glass, but it was all clear. Maybe they will be colored later? Maybe they will stay clear? The dust in the air from construction beautifully accentuated the rays of glorious sunshine beaming through the windows:) We paid eleven euros to get in, and it could not have been better spent. We helped pay for the construction of a cathedral! We witnessed history literally in the making. When my kids are taking art history to fulfill their humanities GE their first year of college, I'll be able to tel them that I was there before it was done, I remember when those windows still had no glass and there wasn't even a choir (although...who knows what Gaudí has planned by way of a choir...). We've seen a lot of cathedral construction, but that was all to repair what has now fallen into disarray. This one isn't even finished, I can't even tell you how AWESOME that is to me. SO. COOL.

We were also fortunate enough to see the Casa Milá, an apartment building designed by Gaudí. You can only see the main foyer area, one apartment, and the terrace, but it was all so amazing!! Magical, really. The terrace was RIDICULOUS, straight out of Dr. Seuss. Well...without the color. So Dr. Seuss's version of Tatooine. It was like a stone playground, I just wanted to run and jump and play hide-and-seek. We were pressed for time tho bc the museums and such all closed at 8, how lame is that? Spain is like the king of night life but the cool stuff closes early. We did make it to everything (including the Barcelona futbol stadium) that we wanted to tho! Except the Picasso museum...but we would never have had time to do it justice anyway. Also, it was raining when we went to el Parque Güell, so it would have been nice to go after the sun came out.

Dinner that night-wait, I haven't talked about lunch! Yikes. Gaudí is probably one of the few things that can make me forget about food. Lunch that day was with the group, we went to this amazing tapas restaurant and basically gorged ourselves. Well, I could have eaten more, but when can't I? There was more of a Basque influence in the cuisine so it was a fun little change. Not terribly different, I'm not educated enough to compare them point by point, but it was SOOOOO GOOD. One was topped with tomato and a soft, white cheese, one was like a tiny hamburger, one was a mini seafood shish-kebab with mushrooms, one was some sort of fish, one was a sort of sausage...the difficulty in describing Spanish food is our lack of American equivalent. But trust me. Phenomenal. Dinner that night was ALSO phenomenal! Getting there was not...finding dinner in an unfamiliar city is a nightmare. But! We finally found this little hole-in-the-wall, mom and pop place with a menú (two plates and a dessert from the list) for 10 euros. I tried gazpacho! It's a cold soup of pureed vegetables...doesn't that sound icky? That's the reason I avoided it. I was wrong. Ooooohooo how I was wrong. Gazpacho=amazing. It had a fresh cucumber taste with tomato and a little carrot. I can only imagine how delicious it would be for lunch on a hot day in the Spanish sun. I am going to miss this Spanish sun...it's been good to me. I had some sort of amazing salad similar to something Pepita makes that was just as delicious as hers and then we all ended up with steak. Yummy, yummy steak with yummy, yummy fries made in olive oil. Ooooh olive oil. Oh! I bought this great little dish made out of olive wood to sit on my desk and hold little things. I was so excited! Spain produces the most olives out of any country in the world, AND my mom brought home a little olive wood nativity when she went to Jerusalem during college so I wanted an olive wood SOMEthing while I was here. But back to that meal, it was so good! They were winding down for the night so some of their buddies were in there and they were just chattin it up, shooting the breeze as it were. The building was who knows how old so it was kinda sketch, but the bathroom was agreeable and the service was impeccable, so it was a fun night:) Also fun that night: going to sleep by midnight. OHH man. We definitely did not do that the next night. Before bed we watched Boy Meets World (Yo y el mundo) and Dinosaurs on Disney Channel. I haven't seen Dinosaurs in FOREVER, probably since I was 6 or 7...do they play that in the states again?

The next morning we drove about an hour and a half to Port Aventura, a theme park not far from Salou. We had NO idea we were going to a theme park until we got on the bus to Zaragoza two days before so we were all SOO stoked. Of course, it was cloudy and overcast, but that wasn't gonna stop any of us! In fact, it was perfect theme park weather because we weren't broiled alive and it didn't rain until about five minutes before we left the park anyway. We hit the three main roller coasters, one of which was voice-crackingly incredible, one was fun-loopy-flippy-happy, and one was a wobbly wooden coaster with racing cars. All very enjoyable:) The first one we went on, Furious Baco or something, was by FAR the best. We waited in line for an hour and a half but it was SO worth it! Hoooooly guacamole it was incredible. It goes SO fast and it corkscrews and loops and stuff...maybe it doesnt loop. But it was sooo fun! I was screaming so loud the whole time that afterward my mouth was dry and my voice was SHOT, hence "voice-crackingly incredible". Have you ever been on a roller coaster that gives you a hard-core adrenaline rush for like twenty minutes afterward? It's one of those. Man-oh man-oh. Leaving the park we were all worried about the weather for the beach, especially once we drove into Salou. Our hotel was literally a 30 second walk from the beach. That beach connected us to the MEDITERRANEAN SEA. I still can't believe I went swimming in the Mediterranean. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The hotel was beautiful! We had a balcony and a great view of the water...it was heaven. Well, a cloudy, overcast heaven. We all changed quite rapidly an were down on the beach in no time. After oohing and ahhing at the shops and the palm trees and the sand and the water, we finally got in. It wasn't freezing! Having only swam in the Atlantic, that cold, cold Atlantic, I was in love. And then I got some in my mouth. Just thinking about it makes me shudder. Sooooo salty. So not pleasant. Just so gross. I learned the hard way to keep my mouth shut and not touch my mouth with my hands. Or let me hair blow in my face. After splashing around and chasing some waves, the sun started peeking through some clouds! It was amazing! Before we knew it, the clouds were gone and the sun was out and the beach was CRAZY packed with people in a matter of minutes. We were the only ones there at the beginning and all of a sudden-wham! People. It was amazing! I only really got in the water the one time, it's much easier to enjoy that Mediterranean sunshine while dry. We really lucked out, had the sun been out all day it would have been SO hot at the beach. That would have been fun in its own way, but it was nice to just walk around and feel the cool breeze and play in the sand without melting. We stayed for probably 3 or 4 hours before we had to go back for dinner. I ate as fast as I could and then went right back out to do some shopping and walk along the beach one last time. I never liked the ocean until that day, lemme tell ya. The Jersey Shore is tons of fun, I enjoy the beach, but getting in the water? Blecch. I had no idea it could be that amazing. I now want the cliche honeymoon of the beach-side resort and white sands...sigh. The sand wasn't white, of course, but it certainly was soft. I could have walked along the water for hours that night. Instead we played cards. Also fun:)

Saturday was again lost to traveling. Once we got home, I officially started packing. Ugh. Packing. Not only is it a nightmare, it means that our days here are numbered, and that number is five. In all honesty, I'm excited to go home, but if I were here for two more months, that would not be a bad thing:)

Muse on Wednesday! Oh and PS. The title of this post comes from the musical Company by Stephen Sondheim. There's a song called Barcelona. It was running through my head ALL week.

The Theatuh, The Theatuh [and] I Left My Heart in Burgos

Hey sooo I realized I'm behind on my blogginz and I'm about to embark and the excursion of all excursions: BARCELONA. So if I don't write about last week tonight, I am going to forget allll about it. Lame.

So last week! Wednesday night we went to the Prado to discuss Goya. We went the day before to discuss Velázquez, rounding my Prado trips out to about five:) Maybe six? Oh I think it's six. Hopefully I'll get to go one more time before I go, but I leave in a week and two days. Waaaaay too soon. Anyway, after the Prado on Wednesday we went to Rodilla to get some lil' sandwiches (each sandwich is basically a half sandwich on Wonder bread...but better) before we headed over to the theatre to see La Moza de Cántaro, a play by Lope de Vega. I had forgotten just how much I love and miss great theatre. Can't wait to take advantage of that when I'm home! :) But this production was soooo brilliant! It was the national, classically trained, super-great acting troop, kind of a Spanish equivalent to the Royal Shakespeare Company, and it was just so great. Luckily the plot was relatively simple because it was kind of difficult to follow, especially considering I fell asleep for about ten minutes...it was really dark, and those seats were really comfy. Man, that was SO fun. Lope de Vega wrote something like 1,500 plays. I'm not even kidding, he just cranked 'em out. And he wrote poetry.

The next day, Thursday, we left for Burgos:D We made a stop on the way...somewhere. Dang it, where did we stop? Wow. I can't even think of what we did when we stopped. Probably ate. Oh yeah! We stopped in Lerma. There was a gorgeous view from the old Roman(?) gate and we stopped and ate some food. No. I had already eaten my sandwich...we bought snacks for the bus at a supermercado:) Anyway, glad that's cleared up. Driving up to Burgos was a moment I hope I always remember. There is a BEAUTIFUL Gothic cathedral in Burgos, the exterior is almost more impressive than the inside, so seeing that as we drove up was nerdily exciting for me. When we got to Burgos, we had a few hours of free time in which I fell in LOVE love love with Burgos. I officially have a favorite city we've visited. I've loved everywhere, but this is the city that reached out, grabbed me in the face, and laid a big one right on the mouth, I tell ya. We went to this gorgeous park and just enjoyed nature and the view of the city (we basically climbed a mountain to get there...soooo many stairs) and after we of course got ice cream. No. It was too hot for ice cream. We got granizados, an Icee type slush thing. But probably better than anything you've ever tried in that genre. Dang. Then!!!!!!!! This was seriously one of my favorite things of the whole trip. We went to a monastery somewhere not terribly far from Burgos, but on the way we stopped near a canyon (the bus literally dropped us off in the middle of the freeway) where there were eagles everywhere. It was so neat! But the BEST part, there was a concrete path and a railing down in the canyon so we got to spend time exploring. I got down first of the group and I was crazy full of energy (from belting Disney songs with half the girls the whole bus ride to Burgos:]) so I literally ran ahead to see where it lead. It was just the freeway again, a little further down, but it was so neat! I can't explain it very well, especially without pictures, but it was sooo neat to be down in the canyon and hearing the water and feeling the cool air and seeing some eagles and such. From there we drove to the monastery, took a tour, and then got to sit in for their evening Gregorian chantings!!! Legit Gregorian chant from some Spanish monks. When I was in the Gregorian chant choir for a month of fifth grade, I never would have imagined that. It was so neat! After returning to Burgos for dinner in the hotel (Paella. I made a friend of my little lobster guy and subsequently could not eat him. Also we drank La Casera, a reeeeheeeeeaaally delicious slightly-flavored sparkling water:]), we had even more free time! So we went and hung out in front of the cathedral. I taught the group Ninja:) The next day we had a guided tour (from a VERY Spanish man-Spaniard. Great dresser) of the city a bit and then to the cathedral. =O That cathedral is GORGEOUS. I love Gothic architecture, I tell ya. This was sooooo amazing. After our tour of the cathedral and learning all about El Cid, we drove to somewhere else...where someone is buried...oh. No, it was a Carthusian monastery. The Carthusian monks take a vow f silence, and yet they still have a choir. Doesn't that seem a bit oxymoronic? I meant to ask about that...at any rate, we had more free time after we got back to Burgos and we actually went BACK to the park:) Still gorgeous, but we weren't there as long. We was huuuungry. So we got some greeeat food for lunch (garlic soup, blood sausage, a fried egg, and flan. And lots of bread) and did a lil shopping. I bought a little necklace charm of a shell, the symbol of the pilgrim, because Burgos is a stop on the Camino de Santiago (a camino I very much want to take myself someday). Not only is it a constant reminder of Spain and all its glory, but it's from Burgos, my favorite city, and it reminds me to work toward my very real goal of doing the camino someday. Second honeymoon? Eh? Eh? :) On our way out of Burgos (sad) we stopped at the church where El Cid had to leave his wife and children when he was exiled. His horse is buried there! Babieca.

I'm sure there's so much more I'm forgetting, but the most important things is this: Burgos is amazing. Tomorrow: Barcelona!!! In the rain. Claro.

La corrida

Before I dive into this post, I just need a moment of silence for the fact that I only have SIXTEEN DAYS left in Spain.











Vale. I always think Noche de Hogar can never get any better here in Spain, what with the Prado, the Reina Sofia, Flamenco classes, row boats, and Magnum ice cream, but I was wrong. This week we went to a corrida de toros, a real Spanish bull fight! I remember learning about bull fights for the first time, at least in any sort of detail, my Freshman year of high school. Fourteen-year-old Kelly would NEVER have imagined twenty-one-year-old Kelly ACTUALLY attending one. Never. And yet there we were, standing outside the stadium/arena/ball park. It did feel oddly like a baseball game when we first got there. If soccer is their football (rather, fútbol is their football), then bull fights would totally be their baseball. Although...don't they have baseball in Spain...? Baseball is more like their soccer. Whatever. I don't do sports. But I do apparently do bull fights! And it really was such a great thing to see. As bull fights go, it wasn't a very good one apparently. One of the toreros was only 19 years old, and none of them had very much experience. But it was ridiculous how huge and fast those bulls were and how close they got to the fighters! Okay I gotta start from the beginning.

The way the fighting arena is set up, you can buy tickets in the sol or the sombra, sun or shade. We got the cheapest tickets we could (16 euros) and of course were in the sol. The sombra seats were over twice as expensive. It was an interesting conflict, bc with the sun beaming in our faces I needed my sunglasses, but with my sunglasses I couldn't see the blood. Soooo I didn't wear my sunglasses. I did, however, use my sa-weet Spanish fan that I bought for 3 euros in Córdoba as a semi-visor. So it wasn't too bad. It was pretty hot tho, man alive. Anyway, we walk into the arena, assuming we'd be in the nosey-nosebleed section, but we were only about halfway up from the bottom! It was amazing! We really did end up with great seats. Also, the arena is a lot smaller than anticipated. I wasn't exactly expecting baseball stadium size, but at least bigger than what it was. There was a big old tarp in the middle of the dirt ring, and I cannot even begin to describe how excited I was when they pulled that away!!! There were guys with brooms out at one point and I wondered if they came out and danced to YMCA at the seventh inning stretch. They didn't after all. But they did clean up a lot of bull blood mud.

Each corrida consists of three fighters, each taking on two bulls a piece. A fight could last anywhere from 20-30 minutes, so the whole thing was about two and a half hours...maybe closer to two. When the bull is first released, there are three or four fighter guys with pink capey things to antagonize the bull. After he's sufficiently irritated, two guys on horses come out. I don't know what it is about those horses, but those bulls do NOT like them. The bull will charge at the horse and just SLAM into it. Luckily, the horse is heavily armored and blindfolded, so the horse just takes it like a man. As the bull slams into the horse, nearly lifting it off the ground and tipping it (but unfortunately never actually felling a horse...lame), the rider stabs the bull in the neck/spine area with a long spear thing. Then the bull keep butting his head into the underside of the horse, getting blood alllll over the armor. Okay, not alllll over. A good fighter minimizes the blood as much as possible, so in general it really isn't terribly graphic. Pues. Then, the pink cape fighters come and lure the bull away from the horse so they can exit the ring. After some more teasing from the pink guys, the reall torero comes out. He has the smaller red cape and the gorgeous pants and packet. Seriously. These costumes were amazing. The goal for the torero is to keep the bull's attention as long as he can. THe more times he can get the bull to run around him chasing the red cape, the better. It was like a dance, these toreros are weirdly flexible. After some fancy footwork, the torero whips out a sword, gets the bull to charge, and has to embed the sword into the bull in one swift motion, minimizing both the blood and the time of death. Knowing that, we really didn't see a very good fight. No one got the sword in on the first try that I can remember, and the bulls all definitely took awhile to die. Maybe not the first one...they all run together. But!!! The second torero was gettin panicky, so to get it over with he just stabbed kinda willy-nilly and ended up stabbing the bull through the lungs. Apparently, when a bull is stabbed in the lungs, blood just poooours out of his mouth like a fountain. I won't go into detail, but let's just say, I didn't realize bulls had soooooo much blood in them. Blerg. He did the same thing when he fought in the second half too!! They carried away the bloody mud/dirt/sand stuff in baskets. Baskets of blood mud. Okay, maybe too much detail. Ugh. I still shudder just thinking of it, let alone typing about it. ::shudder::

All in all, it was SUCH a cool experience! I probably don't need to go ever again, but it was definitely an experience I'll remember for a long time:)

Salamanca and Valladolid

This weekend we journeyed to a couple of university towns, Salamanca on Friday then Valladolid on Saturday. We've had a lot of tour guides so far, but our Salamanca guide was by far the best:) Sevilla was a good guide too, but this one was just so fun! And she had a mic so we could hear her...biased maybe? Mostly her title is earned of her own volition though. Salamanca has SUCH a beautiful cathedral! All cathedrals are wonderful, don't get me wrong, but they are definitely not all created equal. Stepping into the cathedral in Salamanca literally took my breath away. My favorite part of Salamanca, however, was the free time:) It was a Friday night in Salamanca, a university town, and it was great to just be able to be a part of it! We found the SICK rap battle. Spanish rap...love it. Need to become more familiar with it, for sure. From there we explored to find the river...I don't think we ever found it. But we found a skate park! That felt SOOOO American, they had American music playing, the clothes, the skateboards...excpet the park was right next to a Roman bridge. Like, an oooold Roman bridge. So that was a little less homey:) Through further exploration we found this EPIC poetry reading (not a reading of epic poetry...a poetry reading of epic proportions) at the Casa de las Conchas. There was a kind of light show on the side of the building and the readers were all in different windows and lit with spotlight...Enya was playing, which alone upped the epic factor at least 30%. We ended up in the Plaza Mayor. It was dark by now so it was great to see it all lit up and just sit and chill with the rest of the Spanish hordes and eat our gummies:) Our gummy obsession is...not diminished in any way by travel. Augmented, if anything.

So Valladolid is one of the newer cities in Spain. It wasn't Visigoth, Roman, Muslim, anything before it was founded in 1072. So it's pretty young, really. The best part about Valladolid was DEFINITELY the food:) But what else is new? We had some free time exploring the city after a quick tour of a sculpture museum and various other sites, but then we headed a few miles out of the city to a bodega where they had a FEAST prepared for us. It's good I'm blogging about this the same day, bc I still may have trouble remembering everything we ate. But we get there and we have to descend into the restaurant, it's built in a hill. We literally ate in a cave:) A cave! Man. That was so cool. It was like a hobbit house. But there was SO MUCH FOOD, far more than any hobbit could eat. We started with bread, jamón and chorizo ibérico, and queso. Ohhh such good queso. And bread. And jamón and chorizo. Then there was salad and tortilla española (holla!) and blood sausage (not nasty! Actually kinda delicious. Still not really clear on what blood sausage is...and I wanna keep it that way) and grilled vegetables and wild mushrooms and we finished off with lamb cutlets, finger style. Dessert consisted of Magnum Minis!!! Bite-sized Magnum ice cream bars! Ooooohooo man. I ate soooooo much. And I will still probably eat a ton at dinner in a few minutes. When I get home, I have got to hit that exercise bike like no other and re-learn how to eat small meals every two hours as opposed to my body weight in food twice a day. Jenessa and I are also probably hit up the Magnum bars we have in the freezer that we bought from a grocery store. We did we bring such a delicious temptation into the house? Bc we have no self-control. Do we regret it? Ha! Yeah right.

Post-dinner update:

Ate way too much at dinner (fajitas), including Pepita's infamous bizcocho (like pound cake. Amaaaazing pound cake that she only makes ONCE A WEEK. Amazing). No Magnum tonight.

A dormir:)

Family Home Evening

Family Home Evening is pretty much amazing in Spain. Monday night we had pseudo-FHE at the Jardín Botánico next to the Prado. It's so pretty! Not as cool as the jardines in the south, but it does a good job. After that I ended up going to a seminar given by a contemporary Spanish video artist. How ridiculous is that?!? I was in the Reina Sofia, watching some sweet video art with the artist RIGHT THERE. That's cool anywhere, let alone in the Reina Sofia. I did a loooot of research about video art this past semester for my internship with the Museum of Art on campus, so I was even more nerdily excited when I found out he was a video artist.

Real FHE consisted of a visit to the Prado (my fourth) with our maestra Rebeca. It was interesting to hear more about the significance of Renaissance art, but I was SO tired...I don't remember much. After the Prado we went to Retiro Park to row boats on the little lake there in the middle of the park and get a Magnum. Still the only kind I have tried is Temptation Chocolate. I figured out what's in it! Pieces of dark and white Belgian chocolate and brownie. Aaaaah-mazing. Rowing boats was so fun too:) My back is killing me today and I rowed for maybe ten minutes. Who has two thumbs and is a whimp? This girl. Pretend I'm pointing at myself with my thumbs. For dinner a group of us went to a kebab place in Alcalá. Th Turks have invaded Europe with their kebab restaurants. I'm not complaining, it was sooooo yummy! I can't believe it's taken me so long to get to a kebab place, they're everywhere.

Oh! So for breakfast every day we eat toast and Colacao, right? Well. We started with peach jam. When that was gone, we had strawberry, then back to peach. One morning we were surprised with cream al cacao, a fantastic chocolate spread similar to Nutella without the hazelnut and not shiny. For awhile that was all we had. That with Colacao is a lot of chocolate for the morning, so I drank manzanilla (chamomille tea) for a few days or ate one of my two pieces of toast with olive oil and salt. Then the peach jam came back:) Chocolate spread still isn't gone. Let me tell you. Both of them together? HEAVEN. With the perfect balance, you can't exactly taste the peach, but the sweetness of the jam combines with the rich chocolate to temper it and make it just divine. The chocolate's almost gone though...sigh. Who knows what will be next? :) Also, have I mentioned how much I miss milk? This boxed milk thing is not workin for me. Also I still want a burger. Even McDonalds burgers aren't as good. Yes, I succumbed and ate at McDonalds. The first time was for a Toblerone McFlurry tho so I thought that was pretty valid. And delicious. Yum-my.

Probably I should pay attention in class a little more now. Probably.

Cordoba, Sevilla, Granada, and Úbeda

I’ve been realizing that taking the time to sit down and blog about what’s been happening is basically impossible. We are always ALWAYS moving and if we’re not moving, we’re sleeping or eating. So! I am currently sitting in class (the “study” part of this Study Abroad) and semi-paying attention to the reconquista of Asturias en the ninth century. This final may not go so well.

This past week we had a PHENOMENAL excursion to Andalucía, a region in southern Spain. As c-c-cold and frigid as Segovia and Ávila were, Andalucía was the complete opposite. En serio, it was gloriously warm and sunny the whole four days we were there. It’s been sunny since here in Alcalá as well, but Andalucía is a few degrees warmer, there’s sand and palm trees everywhere…it’s just beautiful! I wouldn’t want to be there ANY later in the year tho because dang. It really was warm. We were in heaven:)

Man. The teacher keeps walking to the back of the room.; This may be more difficult than I thought. Don’t worry, Mom and Dad. I’m still paying attention:) I even answered a question!

So Wednesday we drove first to Córdoba to see the Mezquita de Córdoba, the most important mosque in Muslim Spain. Córdoba is unlike any of the other cities we’ve seen so far. It looked like something out of Aladdin or ancient Arabia. Yellow sand everywhere and palm trees and old buildings that matched the landscape. Oh and ice cream shops everywhere. Really authentic. We started out with some free time for food and exploring before we met up again with our guide, Antonio. We brought him with us from Madrid. The houses in Córdoba are white to reflect the sun, but the doors and even windows sometimes are outlined with a thick border of vibrant yellow. That yellow comes from a paint mixed with jojoba, a natural pesticide that keeps mosquitoes (didn’t know that was pluralized with an e) out. Isn’t that sweet? Old school insect repellent. They didn’t need no citronella tiki-torches. Also in Córdoba and Andalucía in general are beautiful patios. The streets are lined with the white walls of the houses (more like condominiums) and each door opens up to a patio filled with flowers or fountains and sunshine and cute benches… Some of them literally just have pots and pots of flowers. Everywhere. Others are more classic with a fountain, some nice shade, benches…I love fountains. Any garden is made ten times better with a fountain. And we’ve seen a lot of sweet gardens.

Oh. You know what? The white houses with the yellow door borders may have been Sevilla…yeah pretty sure that was Sevilla. Hee:) It was a VERY busy four days with not a lot of sleeping and a lot of walking, so it all blurs together. I can’t even remember what I wore very well and it was only four days. Did I mention I didn’t sleep much?

One thing I KNOW was in Córdoba was the Mezquita. Would that I were a poet, or even a good writer, to be able to capture the beauty and true awesomeness (the literal definition, not the surfer-dude definition) of that building. I’d learned about it in art history and seen pictures and such, but being there was such an incredible experience. Despite the innumerable columns and double arches, the space felt surprisingly expansive and uplifting. One element of Islamic art is “horror vacui” (trill your r’s as you say that one), which is a fear of empty space, so every inch was covered with immaculate carvings. Religious Islamic art is without figures of people or animals, so there are intricate patterns of shapes and flowers and calligraphy from the Quran. The walls are so thickly decorated that while we were touring the building, there was a woman vacuuming the wall. Literally. Vacuum. On the wall. In jest I said, “When do they bring out the toothbrush?” but sure enough, on our way out we saw here detailing with a tiny tiny brush. Was it a toothbrush? Probably not, But it was definitely a small bristled utensil. Sound like a toothbrush? I think so.

The double arches have alternating polychromatic stone with red accents. Everywhere you look there are just columns and arches everywhere. Catholic architecture is about wide open space and bringing people together to worship. Islamic architecture facilitates solitude and the individual’s worship, hence the sea of columns. Even just walking through alone as we explored after the tour was an experience.

So…you know the Catholics? After their Reconquista of Muslim Spain, they destroyed a lot of beautiful art and culture. I’m not even Muslim and it’s a sore subject. In the Mezquita, the Catholics demolished a good portion to construct a cathedral, so there in a corner of the mosque is a huge cathedral…it’s a lovely cathedral, but it’s really odd to be there where the two worlds collide. I didn’t spend much time in that corner. It just felt wrong.

Man this blog entry is forever long. Props if you’ve made it this far.

After departing from beautiful Córdoba, we drove to Sevilla to eat and sleep. Boooy did we eat. It was our only meal as a group so we went all out. It was a real Sevillian feast! Andalucía is the olive-producing capital of the world so there were plates of olives waiting for us when we got there. Such. Phenomenal. Olives. I’m not a huge black olive fan, but these green olives I could not get enough of. Pits and everything, they were so delicious. We had a typical Spanish salad of lettuce, tomato, etc. Very simple, all covered in olive oil and vinegar. Then! Some other delicious salad with tomato and tuna…oh and then some fried zucchini. Wow. SO good. Then they brough our entries. For me, pez espada:) That’s right. Sword ish. It was kinda like a fish/chicken texture and it was soooo delicious. An Andalucian specialty is huevos revualtas, or really fancy scrambled eggs. Those were good too, but I loooved my swordfish. The bacalao was also amazing, maybe even a little better than the swordfish. But I’ll get that next time. To drink I had pineapple juice. Things like that aren’t as sweet here so it was so refreshing. Oh, did I mention we didn’t eat until about 10:30? Yeah. Spain. Late meals. Luckily we stayed up waaaay too late that night (and the subsequent nights) playing Scum. I spent a lot of time as Scum that first night. But then I won BS! So…that’s cool. I had three nines. Oh also with dinner: flan. FINALLY I got my genuine Spanish flan! The dessert plate was a combination of flan-like treats, and all of it was absolutely phenomenal. Flan is my favorite dessert. Ever. Even more than chocolate. I know right? But it’s been like that since high school. And now I’m in flan heaven. Flan. HEAVEN.

The next day we spent entirely in Sevilla. We started with a walking tour of the ancient city. That’s where I learned about those white walls and yellow pesticide paints:) Sevilla is GORGEOUS, have I mentioned that? There’s a river that extends through the city that cruise ships can use and pull right up to the middle of the city. Okay, maybe not the exact middle, but they are right in there. Again: palm trees. Gorgeous! By way of crazy old buildings we toured, there was a cathedral and a palace? I honestly cannot remember…lunch was good tho! It took like an HOUR to get my food but it took me probably six minutes to down that plate of delicious spaghetti. Yeah they have good Italian food in Spain:) Also another garden…man I wish I could remember. So much beautiful Muslim architecture. Christian too, but this trip was our first real immersion in Islamic art. Looooved it. Clearly loved it enough to remember the names of the places we went:)

There was this one place with a sweet tower that had a phenomenal view of the city…man I gotta figure out where we went!!!! This is killin me.

Thursday night we had the good fortune of attending the flamenco museum there in Sevilla. First we got to go through a little exhibit of the history, the costumes, etc, then we had a rhythm class with the resident singer. It was sooo fun! We got to sit on these box/seat drums and drum away. The teacher, the singer in residence, was one of those individuals that I will remember for the rest of my life. While we would drum or clap our assigned rhythm, he would sing along and give us a taste of the flamenco flavor. We had no idea just what he could do. Mabel, the program directors wife, asked him to sing something more for us, he had a beautiful voice. When he asked what he should sing we told him to sing his favorite. His favorite song is one that he himself wrote after his mother passed away five years ago. She died of a tumor so her death was not sudden, but he is a very sensitive spirit so his family never let on just how sick she was. For him, it really was a jolt to the system. It changed how he sings. Now, he always sings with all of his soul, all of his passion, all of who he is releases when he sings. We were just in a small room so his powerful voice penetrated me to the core. His anguish was tangible. After our museum visit we went to the main floor for the espectáculo de flamenco. There was a guitarist, the singer, a rhythm guy who clapped, and a male and female dancer (both beautiful). This was one of those experiences that leaves a mark on the soul and slightly changes who you are and how you think. Each and every person on that stage had such fire and energy. I can’t imagine living with that much passion and having the talent to harness and express it so brilliantly. At the end of the show my mind was literally blown. Everyone was chattering on about how amazing it was and how incredible the dancing and the music was…for me talking about it all so soon would have cheapened it. I kind of joined in but I was still try to process what I felt, let alone why I felt that way. It was like an electric charge had coursed through my veins. Their presence was tangible and intoxicating. I wish I could better illustrate with words just how incredible it was. I kept thinking of a painting by John Singer Sargent, El Jaleo (see above). The ferocity of the dance, the shouts of olé, the cantante with his head thrown back, the energy of the spectacle. I wish I had a video recording of it to preserve the memory forever, but one thing I do know: I am SO coming back to Spain if only to eat Pepita’s tortilla española and see a flamenco show.

Friday we drove to Granada. Again: Palm trees. Here I KNOW we saw the Alhambra:) The drive to the Alhambra was sooo lovely. Brilliant white houses, green trees, terracotta roof tiles. The Alhambra was the Muslim palace, later taken over by the Christians, surprise surprise. It is an enormous complex where the king and his subjects lived. More gardens, more beautiful architecture. The Cuartos de los Leones was under some serious construction, which was a bummer, but that place is basically the 8^th Wonder of the world. We only had a couple of hours to enjoy it all in all. Reservations have to be made five or six months in advance, it’s nuts! They only let 1000 people through a day. Oh!!! Also all over Andalucia? Orange trees! They are sooo wonderful. You’re lookin around, seein some sweet trees, then all of a sudden in all that green you see a vibrant point of orange glow. It’s fantastic:) I tried one of the oranges at the Alhambra and it was soooo sour. These kinds of oranges are used more for jam. Spain is really good at jam. I’ve never eaten so much peach jam in my life. Also peach juice. Yum. Where was I? Oh. Oranges. The leaves of the orange tree smell amazing.

Before the Alhambra, we had free time for lunch and exploration. After some tortilla española, we went off to find the Frederico Garcia Lorca park. He’s a famous Spanish author with a truly great park. After lunch we went to the cathedral where Ferdinand and Isabel are buried. Yeah. I was in the same building as their skeletons. And some phenomenal Flemish art.

After the Alhambra we went back to the hotel to find dinner. A group of us ate at this phenomenal Chinese restaurant with ridiculously cheap and amazing food. I had shark fin soup, fried rice, orange duck, and flan. Yeah:) Flan in a Chinese restaurant! Brilliant. This was one of the funniest nights of my life. It loses some of its charm in the retelling, but I’ma try it anyway. The whole night we’d had a hard time understanding our waitress and the waiter and there was a lot lost in translation…it was hilarious. Luckily we were the only people in the restaurant for the most part because we were pretty loud…anyway, it comes time for dessert. The options were flan, ice cream, coffee, pineapple, and some sort of tea infusion. When we asked what kind of ice cream there was, she repeated “coffee, pineapple, and infusion”. Remember: this is a group of Americans speaking Spanish to a Chinese lady with an accent. The three that wanted ice cream ordered “piña,” or pineapple. As a joke I said “watch, they’ll all get slices of pineapple on a plate.” Surely enough, the waiter came out with three plates of pineapple. You had to be there to understand just how hilarious it was, but it was the perfect capstone to the night:) We laughed til we cried, it was brilliant.

Saturday we left Granada for home, with a stop in Úbeda along the way. Úbeda is a cute little city with a cathedral, probably a palace. We were only there for an hour to get lunch, but we parked near a lookout point from which we could see “el mar de olivos”, the Olive Sea. It’s an area of Andalucía with olive groves that extend far beyond the horizon in every direction. It was beautiful! So many olive trees. Lunch for me consisted of tortilla española, claro. Honestly, Saturday I was just excited to get home. Four days is a lot of fun at once. I’m still catching up from all those nights in a row with so few hours of sleep:)

This week we’re going to Madrid (as always), hopefully Toledo again, Salamanca, and Valladolid. Also, I’m gonna stop promising pictures. Be ready in a month tho. When I get home? Photo. City.

Oh! One last thing. I went to the Thyssen and the Palacio Real earlier this week. Also! There was this phenomenal used book fair in Madrid near the Plaza de Cibeles. Kiosk after kiosk of old Spanish books. I was in heaven. The Thyssen is a museum, one I’d never heard of until the day before we went. Tuesday was national free museum day so we definitely took advantage and visited one the most expensive ones. The Thyssen blew me away! I had no idea what to expect, but right when we walked in there were four Rodin captives with a Tintoretto painting serving as the back drop. Seeing the Rodin sculptures literally took my breath away. I had no idea! The Thyssen certainly doesn’t host many masterpieces, but the woman has a phenomenal collection of a very wide variety of art. A lot of modern American artists like Rothko, Pollock, etc. It was just a good taste of EVERYTHING and it took us three solid hours to get through it! There was a special Monet exhibit as well that was neat to see. The Palacio Real was ridiculous. So much luxury! I can’t even imagine Versailles. Same idea. Muuuuch bigger scale. Some day.

Every Sunday night there's a program we watch during dinner entitled "España en la memoria". It's a great PBS type show where they interview famous Spaniards or recount historical events all about Spain now and then. It's so great! I want the DVDs, it's such a great way to learn about the country. Check it out! Last night's was about a TV producer who had a sweet show called "Aplauso". He had guests like Abba, Kiss, the Bee Gees, big Spanish artists, everyone. It aired in the 70s. Speaking of old school music, after dinner Pepita showed us her record collection. So much New Kids! Her kids had great taste in American pop music. NKOTB (even the Christmas album), Marky Mark, Mariah Carey, Kylie Minogue, Vanilla Ice. Man. I am so excited to crank up their record player and give 'em a listen!

Class is over, hallelujah! A comer=D (that means to eat)