3-7
Yesterday was a crappy day. Almost as soon as I woke up, I started worrying because I’m still undecided about what to do during spring break. I have a nonrefundable flight lined up out of Salzburg on April 7th, but then I would get back to Madrid and have a week with nothing to do and everyone else gone. So I was thinking about scrapping the ticket and using my Eurail pass to get trains to other cities and travel on my own. And I think for the most part that would be ok, except there are some trains you need to pay an extra charge if it’s a high speed or a reservation fee or something were it wouldn’t be free. So I’ve been trying to figure all this out, in the 20 minutes or so I have at a time on the internet between classes. So I started the day out worried. I decided to go to Sol because I wanted to go to FNAC (the book/music store) to get the second Harry Potter in Spanish, and I needed to buy toothpaste and stuff from Corte Ingles. At FNAC I found Golden Compass, the Hobbit, and Pawn of Prophecy in Spanish too, and I was so excited! I could buy them and read some of my favorite books while still practicing my Spanish. But they wouldn’t take my credit card without ID, and they wouldn’t accept my international student ID card or a copy of my passport (it has to be the original passport). So I ended up just getting HP with the 20 euro I had in my purse. I was so mad. It was so stupid. So, then after that I only had 5 euro left for Corte Ingles, so I couldn’t get everything I needed. I was in a really bad mood. Not to mention, I was still worried about spring break. I stopped in the locutorio for a little bit (it couldn’t be very long because I didn’t have very much money) to try to figure out some of the eurail stuff, and what little I found was just discounted tickets, not free. All I wanted to do was talk to my parents about things to try to sort some stuff out, but we’re not going to talk until Sunday. I also found out my grandpa had a mild stroke (either that or an MS ‘attack’). The way it was presented it didn’t sound like that big of a deal, so I wasn’t really worried, but it didn’t help matters! I came home and decided to watch a movie to take my mind off things. I watched V for Vendetta, which isn’t a happy movie, but it’s so good it didn’t matter. I was in a little better mood when I went to choir in the evening, and after singing Handel for four hours I was a little happier. But still. I texted mom to make sure Grandpa was ok, and she called back, so we did get to talk a little. We didn’t get anything resolved because we didn’t talk for long (it’s expensive via cell phone!), but just being able to talk with her cheered me up a bit. So then I spent the rest of the night (until 1 am, to my surprise) looking at the train timetable that came with my Eurail pass to try to figure out which trains needed reservations and extra fees and which ones would be free/very cheap. Then I decided that the day needed to end so I went to sleep. All in all, not my best day.
Today we had a field trip for my cultural studies class. Actually, it was two field trips in one. First, we went to the Reina Sofia museum to see Picasso’s Guernica and some other works by him, Salvador Dali, and a couple other vanguardia artists. It was a lot of cubism and surrealism and all that other kind of stuff that I’m not really into, but it was still interesting. Our teacher talked so long about everything that we ended up spending two and a half hours on one floor, and I don’t think we even saw all of it. Guernica is huge and impressive and disturbing. It’s about the size of a wall in a normal sized room. It is named after the city that was bombed during the civil war, but according to our reading it’s a general anti-war work. It’s the most famous painting in the Reina Sofia, and the one that they bought to draw people in (against Picasso’s express wishes that it stay in the Prado museum, I might add). It is jealously guarded: there were two museum employees for that one painting alone, and if anyone gets too close a buzzer goes off. They wouldn’t even let Jen sit on the floor during our lecture. I have no idea why. But it’s under so much surveillance because at one point it was stabbed. I don’t know when or why, but I assume it was probably some pro-facist/pro-Francoist fanatic. Anyway, not an attractive piece of work in the slightest. But I suppose it gets across the message of the horrors of war as well as anything.
Later this afternoon, we went to Valle de los Caídos, which is a monument built by Franco to commemorate those who fell in the civil war. It’s a very controversial place. It’s about 40 minutes outside of Madrid, up in the mountains. There’s a huge cross that stands on the top of one mountain that can be seen for miles. It’s 50 stories tall, and the base is another 50, so in total it’s 100 stories. Beneath it, carved into the mountain, is a basilica where about 30,000 or more soldiers are buried. The whole thing was built by prisoners of the civil war; republicans who lost to the facists and were captured. The prisons were overfilled, so Franco used them to build his monument instead. Hundreds of them died while hollowing out the mountain and building the cross and basilica. At first, Franco wanted to bury only those soldiers on his side who had died, and because no one wanted their loved ones to be buried so far away in a mass setting like that, he made it mandatory and had tons of bodies moved there from their previous burial places. Then in the late 50s, Franco decided to make it a more unified symbol and said that any republican soldier who died in the war and was Catholic could (must) also be buried there, so there was another huge batch of bodies moved. Because of this, there are thousands of unidentified bodies, and lots of people don’t know where their parents/grandparents are buried. In addition to the soldiers, the founder of the Falange (fascist group) Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera and Franco himself are buried there. There was a huge controversy about what should be done with the monument after Franco died; some people wanted it destroyed, and others wanted it preserved as a part of the nation’s history. The current president made a law in 2007 that it will be preserved as an apolitical monument, and they are starting to try to identify the unknown bodies buried there. A huge project, since there are more than 30,000. I hesitate to say that it was a cool trip, because the history behind it is so horrible, but seeing that huge cross amongst all the mountains is certainly beautiful. Maybe it would be better to say it was impressive. It’s hard with things like this, because the Spaniards have such strong opinions when it comes to Franco, since it was so recent in history, and I don’t always know who thinks what or why. I don’t want to unthinkingly say anything that would offend them. It’s very different for us, whose country has been free for hundreds of years, than for the Spaniards, who had a dictator less than 35 years ago, and the majority of the population lived through it and remembers it. It’s weird for me to imagine that. As Americans, we take such pride in our freedom; I can’t imagine living without it. It seems like something like dictatorship should be a thing of the past, or at least be somewhere very far away (I suppose I am very far away, aren’t I. . .). But it was a reality for everyone here. It’s weird.
Tomorrow we have our cooking class at Patricia’s house. One of her neighbors is a cook and she’s going to teach us to make some traditional Spanish dishes. So when I come home I can cook Spanish tortilla and flan and stuff for you! I can’t guarantee it would be good . . . . But it should be fun. She gave us the bus number and the name of the street to get off on, but we’re sort of supposed to find our way on our own, which should be interesting. Thank goodness I’m going with Katie! It’s such a relief to have another person; that way, if you get lost at least you’re not lost alone!
We have a 4 day weekend coming up in a couple weeks because Thursday the 19th is the Día de San José and there’s no school. Katie and I were going to go to Portugal, but everything was so expensive that we decided to scrap that and take day trips instead. There are a lot of places we want to go within a couple hours of Madrid. We want to go to Salamanca, Cuenca, Guadalajara, maybe return to Toledo, el Escorial, Aranjuez; there are more places than we have days! I think this’ll be better than one big trip because it’ll be a lot cheaper!
There’s someone in our apartment building that plays the oboe and always practices around this time and I can hear. He/she is really good, and it always makes me happy to hear oboe music coming from the open window!
Well, I should probably get some homework done before supper. Later!
Bethany
Monday, March 9, 2009
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
March 2
3-2
Happy March, everyone!! I just got back from Barcelona this morning! It was amazing!! It’s the second largest city in Spain, after Madrid, but it has a totally different feel. Everyone kept telling me it’s more European than Madrid, but I don’t know what that means. I guess that it’s less modernized or something, but I don’t really understand. The streets are much wider and airier, and it’s on the Mediterranean! It’s a 7 and a half hour bus ride, so we took a midnight bus. At the termanial, I asked a guard for directions and he started hitting on me!! It was weird. He asked if I was English, and I said no, American, and he told me he had never met an American before. Then he said he wanted to see me again after this and asked if he could give me his number. I told him I wasn’t interested (I didn’t know what to say!), and then he started wheedling. He said he had always had a dream to date an American. (I don’t know if this is because of the reputation American girls sometimes have of being easy or what.) I told him he should visit the States and maybe he could find a girlfriend there. The he asked me if it was because he was black, and if I didn’t like black people. I was like no, that’s not it at all! Then he was like: have you ever had a black boyfriend, you should try it. He was going on for like 5 minutes about all of this. Finally I said I’m sorry, I’m not interested, and I’m going to be late. I have to go! It was a very uncomfortable experience!
I went with Katie and her friend from home, Greg, who’s studying in London this semester. We got on the bus (the midnight bus, mind you) and this lady came on with a 2 year old girl. For the first half hour or so they were making weird noises, like baby noises, and talking. Then the girl started crying. I was like shut your kid up or I will do it myself!! It was like 1 in the morning!! Grrr! Fortunately, after a while she must have fallen asleep, because I didn’t hear anything more the rest of the trip. We stopped at 2:30 and again at 4ish for a break/change of drivers, and each time they turned all the lights on and made an announcement over the loudspeaker, so it was impossible to sleep through. I did fall asleep in some form, but I don’t know for how long or how well I slept. We got into Barcelona around 7:30, just as the sun was rising. It was very to pretty to see the sunrise over the city! We found our hostel and were lucky enough to be able to check in right away. We decided to take an hour or so to sleep because nothing was open in the city anyway until 9 or 10. Our hostel was really nice (it should have been, for 25 euro a night!) and it was right in the middle of things. We could walk almost everywhere.
We decided just to start wandering, and right away we found the monument to Christopher Columbus, which is at the port. It’s a huge obelisk thingy with a statue of Columbus on the top pointing to the spot where he landed in Spain after discovering America. The pedestal has a statue of Queen Isabel and various scenes of him petitioning the trip and stuff. It was cool. After that we went to the Cathedral of Barcelona, which was, of course, under construction. They were restoring the front of the building, so they put up a huge banner thingy with what it was supposed to look like when it was done, complete with a giant Telefonica logo. All you could see of the actual building was the peak and the spires. Stupid construction. It was free to go inside, though, and we were able to take pictures. It’s weird: I’ve seen so many cathedrals now that I don’t really know how to describe them any differently. They all look very much the same, and yet there’re still always worth visiting. Just being there and seeing such a huge, beautiful, historic building is so cool, that it doesn’t really matter if it’s not that different that ones I’ve already seen.
Our next stop was the church of Santa Maria del Mar, which was basically a cathedral except maybe a little smaller. Very beautiful, with lots of stained glass windows high above the altar. While we were there, a man started playing the organ, so we got to hear it reverberating around the church. It was awesome.
Our next stop was the Museo Picasso, which is (obviously) the Picasso museum. It had a bunch of his sketches and lesser known works. At least, they were lesser known to me. And since I am the ultimate authority on everything, if I don’t know it, it isn’t famous. I was surprised at how much of his stuff wasn’t cubist. I didn’t know he had such a long normal period. Much of his work was intelligible and pleasant to look at. I was glad, because the whole abstract, cubism thing just doesn’t make much sense to me. I like to know what I’m looking at. There were several different styles of paintings; some portraits, some still-life, even one that looked just like a Monet! There was also a room that talked about his collaboration with Diagilev and the Russian Ballet, which we studied in 20th Century Music! There were photos of the set and costumes he designed for one of the ballets (of course now I can’t remember the name of it. It wasn’t one I knew). They talked about Satie’s Parade, which is one of the ones we studied, but there were no pictures of that one. The most famous of his works, like Guernica, are in other museums. We’re going to see Guernica and some of the others in the Museo Reina Sofía with my Estudios Culturales class on Saturday. Should be interesting touring a museum, with my class of 60 kids . . . .
After the museum, we wandered a little bit more. We ended up at the Arc del Triomf, which is a huge gateway type arch in the middle of a long walk with statues and cool lampposts and stuff. It was very cool. And kind of random. That’s one of the things I love most about Spain though; there are so many random statues and monuments just hanging around on the street, oblivious to the modern world around them. It really gives the cities a different feel from anything in the United States.
Next we went and saw some Gaudi stuff. After a little bit of confusion in which we got slightly lost, we found the Casa Batllo, which is one of the houses Gaudi built. It was just a tall, narrowish building in the middle of the block, but boy, did it stand out! It was all colorful with wavy stone balconies and pillars, and cool little spires on top. I read somewhere that Gaudi often emulated eroded stone in his buildings, and the smooth, rounded edges of both Casas does look like that. It also looks to me like it’s melting. The Casa Mila, which is the other building he designed, is an apartment like building with more of the cool wavy balconies. This one isn’t colorful, but it’s got spires on top that remind me of Dairy Queen ice cream cones, with the same kind of swirly twist. The Casa Mila also has these really cool wrought iron-like railings on the balconies that look kind of leafy. We would have gone inside the buildings, but they were 15 and 18 euros, and that seemed a little expensive for us, so we just looked from the outside.
Then we went back to our hostel to rest for a while. It’s tiring walking all around a city! After maybe an hour or so, we went out to Port Vell, which is the seaport. There was a mall and an aquarium and an IMAX and a movie theatre and a whole bunch of stuff there. You couldn’t really see the ocean from there because of the buildings and all the tall ships. We were going to go to the aquarium, but it was like 12 euros, which was too expensive. Then Katie and Greg wanted to see a Monsters of the Deep ocean movie at the IMAX in 3D, but I vetoed that. IMAXes tend to make me a little sick sometimes, and I hate 3D stuff, so both of them together sounded less than fun for me. Although, I suppose the ocean one would have been better than the Dinosaurs Alive movie that was also showing. But we decided to just go see a regular movie. We saw Slumdog Millionaire in Spanish. It was a good movie. I was pleased by how easily I understood everything. I didn’t like the end, though. Well, not the end of the movie, that was fine, but when the credits start . . . well I won’t ruin it for anyone who hasn’t seen it. I just thought it ruined the mood. After the movie Katie and I went back to the hostel and Greg went to meet some friends of his who were also visiting Barcelona this weekend.
Sunday morning we went to Colonia Guell, which is a little town 20 minutes outside of Barcelona where Gaudi designed the church. This is the one my aunt Janny told me was her favorite of all the Gaudi buildings. Only the crypt was completed when the patron withdrew funding, and even though they’ve added some more to it after his death, it’s still not finished. It was really cool: there was a sort of stone canopy over the entrance with rounded pillars that Greg said looked kind of like spider legs. There were lots of roundish stained glass windows with cool little peaks over them. Inside, there was a one room chapel. They had just finished holding mass, so you could still smell the candles. It was beautiful, with all the stained glass and the unique ceiling and curved pillars. I think there was an upstairs, or more rooms somewhere, but it was closed off. There were stairs outside where you could go up on top of the church by the bell tower, where there was a cool view of the colony. I definitely thought it was worth the trip, but I’m not sure if Katie and Greg liked all the Gaudi stuff. They kept referring to it as gaudy, and I don’t know if they didn’t like it, or if they thought it was interesting, but just a little ostentatious. I’m pretty sure Greg used the word obnoxious once, but I don’t agree. I think it’s cool.
When we got back to Barcelona (much later in the day than any of us had expected) we went to Park Guell, which is the park Gaudi designed. It was a million and a half miles from the metro station, and at the top of a huge hill. There were 7 or 8 escalators in the hill from the bottom, plus two very steep blocks to walk up. When we got there, we had to rush through because it was getting late and we still wanted to see the Sagrada Familia before it closed at 6. So we saw the main gate entrance, where the gingerbread house-like buildings of Gaudi’s are (a lot of Gaudi’s stuff reminds me of desserts, apparently), and we saw a little bit of the grounds. I wish we would have had more time, but what can you do? What we did see was really cool.
From there we rushed off to see the Sagrada Familia, which is Gaudi’s famous unfinished cathedral. Another hugely long walk back (though a different route this time without the giant hill), and a couple metro stops later we got there, at almost quarter till 6. Greg and Katie didn’t want to pay 9 euros to get in, but I knew that if I didn’t, I would regret it forever. So I went in. The inside is almost all under construction, because they’re still working on building it from his plans, so there wasn’t a whole lot I could see. I saw the outside walls and huge windows and a few stained glass windows. There’s an elevator you can take up one of the towers, but it was closed by the time I got there. So I stayed inside the compound until about 10 after 6. There were still people there, but all the workers were starting to leave, so I decided to go out. That’s when I got pictures of the outside, which is the most impressive part of the church. There are two façades, on opposite sides of the building. The nativity façade is beautifully carved, with pretty figures. There were musicians carved around the stable scene, and one of them was playing the bassoon! So I got a close up picture of that! J The passion façade, on the other side of the church, is the crucifixion, and all the figures are very angular and strange looking. Both of them are immensely complex and detailed; so much so that it was hard to see everything. It didn’t help that it was so immense. There are four spires on each side built so far, that tower over everything nearby. These are supposed to be the shortest of the 12 towers in the plans. I don’t know how much they’ve scaled down Gaudi’s original plans, but I think they’re still going to make all the towers. The Sagrada Familia is the most impressive of the Gaudi things I saw, just from the sheer size and detail of it. It dominates the plaza, and it’s hard to look away because there’s just so much there to see. It was awesome.
After that, we didn’t really have any plans. Greg wanted to go find a beach, so we went back to the Port and walked along the seaside until we found sand. It was just starting to get dark, so it was really pretty with the sea and the lights from the city. We took off our shoes and socks and waded in the water. So cold!! When we were done freezing our toes off, we went up to a convenience store type thing that was close and bought some wine coolers and chips and sat on the beach in the dark, listening to the sound of the waves for a long time. It was really beautiful. And it smelled so good! But it got cold after a while, so around 8 we headed back to the hostel. At 9 we went downstairs to the restaurant owned by the hostel people and had dinner. I had paella for the first time in Spain. It was yummy. Katie and I got one to share, and the waiter asked us if we wanted two, because the one was small, and held out his hands to about a 6 inch circle. We didn’t want to pay for two, though, so we still got one. When it came it was at least a 12 inch pan! I don’t think we would have been able to eat a whole one each! Stupid waiter trying to get more money out of us . . . .
After supper we went back and went to bed. We got up at 6 this morning in order to get to the airport before our flight left at 8:30. It was less than an hour flight and we were back in Madrid. Much better than 7 and a half hours on a bus! I had a couple hours home before I had to go to class, so I showered and sorted pictures. It doesn’t feel like it was just this morning that I was in Barcelona!
Well, I think that concludes another of my Spanish adventures. Sorry for the long blog, but if you’ve made it this far, you win a special prize! And that is . . . you have been granted the knowledge of what I’m doing in Spain!! Woo hoo!! Wow, I’m in a weird mood. I think I need to go to bed.
Good night all!
Bethany
Happy March, everyone!! I just got back from Barcelona this morning! It was amazing!! It’s the second largest city in Spain, after Madrid, but it has a totally different feel. Everyone kept telling me it’s more European than Madrid, but I don’t know what that means. I guess that it’s less modernized or something, but I don’t really understand. The streets are much wider and airier, and it’s on the Mediterranean! It’s a 7 and a half hour bus ride, so we took a midnight bus. At the termanial, I asked a guard for directions and he started hitting on me!! It was weird. He asked if I was English, and I said no, American, and he told me he had never met an American before. Then he said he wanted to see me again after this and asked if he could give me his number. I told him I wasn’t interested (I didn’t know what to say!), and then he started wheedling. He said he had always had a dream to date an American. (I don’t know if this is because of the reputation American girls sometimes have of being easy or what.) I told him he should visit the States and maybe he could find a girlfriend there. The he asked me if it was because he was black, and if I didn’t like black people. I was like no, that’s not it at all! Then he was like: have you ever had a black boyfriend, you should try it. He was going on for like 5 minutes about all of this. Finally I said I’m sorry, I’m not interested, and I’m going to be late. I have to go! It was a very uncomfortable experience!
I went with Katie and her friend from home, Greg, who’s studying in London this semester. We got on the bus (the midnight bus, mind you) and this lady came on with a 2 year old girl. For the first half hour or so they were making weird noises, like baby noises, and talking. Then the girl started crying. I was like shut your kid up or I will do it myself!! It was like 1 in the morning!! Grrr! Fortunately, after a while she must have fallen asleep, because I didn’t hear anything more the rest of the trip. We stopped at 2:30 and again at 4ish for a break/change of drivers, and each time they turned all the lights on and made an announcement over the loudspeaker, so it was impossible to sleep through. I did fall asleep in some form, but I don’t know for how long or how well I slept. We got into Barcelona around 7:30, just as the sun was rising. It was very to pretty to see the sunrise over the city! We found our hostel and were lucky enough to be able to check in right away. We decided to take an hour or so to sleep because nothing was open in the city anyway until 9 or 10. Our hostel was really nice (it should have been, for 25 euro a night!) and it was right in the middle of things. We could walk almost everywhere.
We decided just to start wandering, and right away we found the monument to Christopher Columbus, which is at the port. It’s a huge obelisk thingy with a statue of Columbus on the top pointing to the spot where he landed in Spain after discovering America. The pedestal has a statue of Queen Isabel and various scenes of him petitioning the trip and stuff. It was cool. After that we went to the Cathedral of Barcelona, which was, of course, under construction. They were restoring the front of the building, so they put up a huge banner thingy with what it was supposed to look like when it was done, complete with a giant Telefonica logo. All you could see of the actual building was the peak and the spires. Stupid construction. It was free to go inside, though, and we were able to take pictures. It’s weird: I’ve seen so many cathedrals now that I don’t really know how to describe them any differently. They all look very much the same, and yet there’re still always worth visiting. Just being there and seeing such a huge, beautiful, historic building is so cool, that it doesn’t really matter if it’s not that different that ones I’ve already seen.
Our next stop was the church of Santa Maria del Mar, which was basically a cathedral except maybe a little smaller. Very beautiful, with lots of stained glass windows high above the altar. While we were there, a man started playing the organ, so we got to hear it reverberating around the church. It was awesome.
Our next stop was the Museo Picasso, which is (obviously) the Picasso museum. It had a bunch of his sketches and lesser known works. At least, they were lesser known to me. And since I am the ultimate authority on everything, if I don’t know it, it isn’t famous. I was surprised at how much of his stuff wasn’t cubist. I didn’t know he had such a long normal period. Much of his work was intelligible and pleasant to look at. I was glad, because the whole abstract, cubism thing just doesn’t make much sense to me. I like to know what I’m looking at. There were several different styles of paintings; some portraits, some still-life, even one that looked just like a Monet! There was also a room that talked about his collaboration with Diagilev and the Russian Ballet, which we studied in 20th Century Music! There were photos of the set and costumes he designed for one of the ballets (of course now I can’t remember the name of it. It wasn’t one I knew). They talked about Satie’s Parade, which is one of the ones we studied, but there were no pictures of that one. The most famous of his works, like Guernica, are in other museums. We’re going to see Guernica and some of the others in the Museo Reina Sofía with my Estudios Culturales class on Saturday. Should be interesting touring a museum, with my class of 60 kids . . . .
After the museum, we wandered a little bit more. We ended up at the Arc del Triomf, which is a huge gateway type arch in the middle of a long walk with statues and cool lampposts and stuff. It was very cool. And kind of random. That’s one of the things I love most about Spain though; there are so many random statues and monuments just hanging around on the street, oblivious to the modern world around them. It really gives the cities a different feel from anything in the United States.
Next we went and saw some Gaudi stuff. After a little bit of confusion in which we got slightly lost, we found the Casa Batllo, which is one of the houses Gaudi built. It was just a tall, narrowish building in the middle of the block, but boy, did it stand out! It was all colorful with wavy stone balconies and pillars, and cool little spires on top. I read somewhere that Gaudi often emulated eroded stone in his buildings, and the smooth, rounded edges of both Casas does look like that. It also looks to me like it’s melting. The Casa Mila, which is the other building he designed, is an apartment like building with more of the cool wavy balconies. This one isn’t colorful, but it’s got spires on top that remind me of Dairy Queen ice cream cones, with the same kind of swirly twist. The Casa Mila also has these really cool wrought iron-like railings on the balconies that look kind of leafy. We would have gone inside the buildings, but they were 15 and 18 euros, and that seemed a little expensive for us, so we just looked from the outside.
Then we went back to our hostel to rest for a while. It’s tiring walking all around a city! After maybe an hour or so, we went out to Port Vell, which is the seaport. There was a mall and an aquarium and an IMAX and a movie theatre and a whole bunch of stuff there. You couldn’t really see the ocean from there because of the buildings and all the tall ships. We were going to go to the aquarium, but it was like 12 euros, which was too expensive. Then Katie and Greg wanted to see a Monsters of the Deep ocean movie at the IMAX in 3D, but I vetoed that. IMAXes tend to make me a little sick sometimes, and I hate 3D stuff, so both of them together sounded less than fun for me. Although, I suppose the ocean one would have been better than the Dinosaurs Alive movie that was also showing. But we decided to just go see a regular movie. We saw Slumdog Millionaire in Spanish. It was a good movie. I was pleased by how easily I understood everything. I didn’t like the end, though. Well, not the end of the movie, that was fine, but when the credits start . . . well I won’t ruin it for anyone who hasn’t seen it. I just thought it ruined the mood. After the movie Katie and I went back to the hostel and Greg went to meet some friends of his who were also visiting Barcelona this weekend.
Sunday morning we went to Colonia Guell, which is a little town 20 minutes outside of Barcelona where Gaudi designed the church. This is the one my aunt Janny told me was her favorite of all the Gaudi buildings. Only the crypt was completed when the patron withdrew funding, and even though they’ve added some more to it after his death, it’s still not finished. It was really cool: there was a sort of stone canopy over the entrance with rounded pillars that Greg said looked kind of like spider legs. There were lots of roundish stained glass windows with cool little peaks over them. Inside, there was a one room chapel. They had just finished holding mass, so you could still smell the candles. It was beautiful, with all the stained glass and the unique ceiling and curved pillars. I think there was an upstairs, or more rooms somewhere, but it was closed off. There were stairs outside where you could go up on top of the church by the bell tower, where there was a cool view of the colony. I definitely thought it was worth the trip, but I’m not sure if Katie and Greg liked all the Gaudi stuff. They kept referring to it as gaudy, and I don’t know if they didn’t like it, or if they thought it was interesting, but just a little ostentatious. I’m pretty sure Greg used the word obnoxious once, but I don’t agree. I think it’s cool.
When we got back to Barcelona (much later in the day than any of us had expected) we went to Park Guell, which is the park Gaudi designed. It was a million and a half miles from the metro station, and at the top of a huge hill. There were 7 or 8 escalators in the hill from the bottom, plus two very steep blocks to walk up. When we got there, we had to rush through because it was getting late and we still wanted to see the Sagrada Familia before it closed at 6. So we saw the main gate entrance, where the gingerbread house-like buildings of Gaudi’s are (a lot of Gaudi’s stuff reminds me of desserts, apparently), and we saw a little bit of the grounds. I wish we would have had more time, but what can you do? What we did see was really cool.
From there we rushed off to see the Sagrada Familia, which is Gaudi’s famous unfinished cathedral. Another hugely long walk back (though a different route this time without the giant hill), and a couple metro stops later we got there, at almost quarter till 6. Greg and Katie didn’t want to pay 9 euros to get in, but I knew that if I didn’t, I would regret it forever. So I went in. The inside is almost all under construction, because they’re still working on building it from his plans, so there wasn’t a whole lot I could see. I saw the outside walls and huge windows and a few stained glass windows. There’s an elevator you can take up one of the towers, but it was closed by the time I got there. So I stayed inside the compound until about 10 after 6. There were still people there, but all the workers were starting to leave, so I decided to go out. That’s when I got pictures of the outside, which is the most impressive part of the church. There are two façades, on opposite sides of the building. The nativity façade is beautifully carved, with pretty figures. There were musicians carved around the stable scene, and one of them was playing the bassoon! So I got a close up picture of that! J The passion façade, on the other side of the church, is the crucifixion, and all the figures are very angular and strange looking. Both of them are immensely complex and detailed; so much so that it was hard to see everything. It didn’t help that it was so immense. There are four spires on each side built so far, that tower over everything nearby. These are supposed to be the shortest of the 12 towers in the plans. I don’t know how much they’ve scaled down Gaudi’s original plans, but I think they’re still going to make all the towers. The Sagrada Familia is the most impressive of the Gaudi things I saw, just from the sheer size and detail of it. It dominates the plaza, and it’s hard to look away because there’s just so much there to see. It was awesome.
After that, we didn’t really have any plans. Greg wanted to go find a beach, so we went back to the Port and walked along the seaside until we found sand. It was just starting to get dark, so it was really pretty with the sea and the lights from the city. We took off our shoes and socks and waded in the water. So cold!! When we were done freezing our toes off, we went up to a convenience store type thing that was close and bought some wine coolers and chips and sat on the beach in the dark, listening to the sound of the waves for a long time. It was really beautiful. And it smelled so good! But it got cold after a while, so around 8 we headed back to the hostel. At 9 we went downstairs to the restaurant owned by the hostel people and had dinner. I had paella for the first time in Spain. It was yummy. Katie and I got one to share, and the waiter asked us if we wanted two, because the one was small, and held out his hands to about a 6 inch circle. We didn’t want to pay for two, though, so we still got one. When it came it was at least a 12 inch pan! I don’t think we would have been able to eat a whole one each! Stupid waiter trying to get more money out of us . . . .
After supper we went back and went to bed. We got up at 6 this morning in order to get to the airport before our flight left at 8:30. It was less than an hour flight and we were back in Madrid. Much better than 7 and a half hours on a bus! I had a couple hours home before I had to go to class, so I showered and sorted pictures. It doesn’t feel like it was just this morning that I was in Barcelona!
Well, I think that concludes another of my Spanish adventures. Sorry for the long blog, but if you’ve made it this far, you win a special prize! And that is . . . you have been granted the knowledge of what I’m doing in Spain!! Woo hoo!! Wow, I’m in a weird mood. I think I need to go to bed.
Good night all!
Bethany
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
February 24
Today is February 24. That means I´ve been in Spain for a month! It´s kind of hard to believe. In some respects, it feels like it´s been longer than that, especially the first couple weeks. (Although when I look back at that, it seems like it´s been much longer than just a month.) But in most ways it´s gone by really fast. This is a good thing and a bad thing, I suppose. I am just as glad now to have the time go by fast, so that I can come home and see all my family and friends sooner. But I´m sure once the time comes, I won´t want to leave. I also feel a little guilty because I had intended to start speaking Spanish with my friends after the first week, and it hasn´t happened yet. And now all of the sudden it´s been a month! We to speak in Spanish every once in a while, and I´m finding that even when I´m speaking in English I sometimes incorporate a little Spanish, either in a phrase or sentence construction or something, but I had far better intentions. So that´s going to be my goal for the next month. Hopefully less than a month. It´s also weird to think that I´ve known the people I met here for only a month. Since we´ve done so much together it seems like I´ve known them for much longer. I still don´t know them all well, but it seems like it´s been more than a month.
Barcelona plans are well underway. We´re taking the bus Friday night, and we decided this morning to for sure take a flight back on Monday morning. Our hostel has a 2 night stay minimum, so we figured we´d take advantage of that and then catch an 7:30am flight back and get back around 8:30 or 9. Then I can have some time to sleep before classes start at 4. That´s the wonderful thing about having Monday mornings off! Janny gave me some recommendations of Gaudi sites to see there, so I think we´re going to take advantage of most of those. I´m getting really excited, I´ve heard Barcelona is one of the best cities in Spain.
I´ve hit a snag on my spring break planning. I can´t remember how much of this I´ve told before, so I´m going to briefly sum it up. Jen and I were going to fly to Budapest, then take the train to Vienna and Salzburg, and then fly home from Salzburg. Later that night (after we bought the tickets), she decided that would be too much money, so we decided to cancel those tickets and do a round trip from Budapest, and from there a round trip bus to Vienna. We would scrap Salzburg entirely. I found out last night that my ticket home from Salzburg is nonrefundable. So I either have to absorb the 164 euro ticket and buy a new one, or find a way to get to Salzburg, probably on my own. I´m not really sure what I´m going to do yet. I messaged Jen but haven´t heard anything back yet. This whole planning thing is so complicated!! It´s so much easier when someone else plans and I just tag along! But I guess it´s a good learning experience. And if I do have to travel alone, it´ll be practice for June when I think I´m going to end up going from Athens to Madrid to Chicago on my own. So I´m trying to think positively.
I can´t think of anything more of interest that´s happened lately, so I´m going to go catch the bus home now. Bye!
Bethany
Barcelona plans are well underway. We´re taking the bus Friday night, and we decided this morning to for sure take a flight back on Monday morning. Our hostel has a 2 night stay minimum, so we figured we´d take advantage of that and then catch an 7:30am flight back and get back around 8:30 or 9. Then I can have some time to sleep before classes start at 4. That´s the wonderful thing about having Monday mornings off! Janny gave me some recommendations of Gaudi sites to see there, so I think we´re going to take advantage of most of those. I´m getting really excited, I´ve heard Barcelona is one of the best cities in Spain.
I´ve hit a snag on my spring break planning. I can´t remember how much of this I´ve told before, so I´m going to briefly sum it up. Jen and I were going to fly to Budapest, then take the train to Vienna and Salzburg, and then fly home from Salzburg. Later that night (after we bought the tickets), she decided that would be too much money, so we decided to cancel those tickets and do a round trip from Budapest, and from there a round trip bus to Vienna. We would scrap Salzburg entirely. I found out last night that my ticket home from Salzburg is nonrefundable. So I either have to absorb the 164 euro ticket and buy a new one, or find a way to get to Salzburg, probably on my own. I´m not really sure what I´m going to do yet. I messaged Jen but haven´t heard anything back yet. This whole planning thing is so complicated!! It´s so much easier when someone else plans and I just tag along! But I guess it´s a good learning experience. And if I do have to travel alone, it´ll be practice for June when I think I´m going to end up going from Athens to Madrid to Chicago on my own. So I´m trying to think positively.
I can´t think of anything more of interest that´s happened lately, so I´m going to go catch the bus home now. Bye!
Bethany
Sunday, February 22, 2009
February 22
Hi all
This morning we went to the Rastro, which is this flea market type thing in the streets. There were about 3 or 4 streets with stalls on both sides filled with all kinds of things, most for really cheap. It was fun to see, but we only spent about 30-45 minutes there because Jen had to leave to go to mass with her senora, and so we all left. Katie and I walked back to Sol via the Plaza Mayor, where there was supposed to be some kind of celebration for Carnaval. All there was was a man who was doing something with a backhoe. I think it was supposed to be some kind of dance with the man and the backhoe. He was in the scoop and it raised up, and then he hung from it and then curled up, and it was weird. It was kind of boring so we just walked by and didn´t stay. Katie and I went to Corte Ingles to get shower shoes for our hostel next weekend in Barcelona, but the cheapest flip flops we could find were 15.50 euros! I wasn´t about to pay that much. Maybe once it gets closer to summer I can find something cheaper. I´ll figure something else out in the mean time.
I came to the internet cafe today to post pictures on Facebook. I got my email for the first time since Thursday, and there were two from my aunt. For those of you who don´t know, which I assume is most of you, my aunt Janny has been at the Mayo clinic for the past week and a half or so. They found out that she has amyloidosis, which is a blood disease that involves the heart, nervous system, and skin. Without treatment, she could die within 3 years. With treatment, which involves a lot of chemotherapy or bone marrow transplant, the time of survival is 5-10 years and growing with each passing year. But there´s a 1 in 3 chance of not surviving the first year of treatment. Her disease is still in the early stages, even though the symptoms have been going on for 5 years. The doctors said she probably wouldn´t have problems with the transplant, and that it could happen as early as April. The danger would be that the treatments wouldn´t work and it would continue to spread. (If I´ve mistaken anything here, please correct me.) So that was a blow. I started crying in the middle of the internet cafe. Fortuanately, I don´t think anyone noticed. It´s a scary thing to find out someone you love may not have as long to live as everyone expected. She´s got an amazing attitude about everything; far better than I would have. She said she knows God is looking out for her, and that whatever happens He will be there. (Great, now I´m starting to cry again.) All of this really makes me wish I weren´t halfway across the world. I would like nothing more than to be with my family now. But obviously that can´t happen. So there´s really nothing for me to do other than pray. Any good wishes you would be willing to will toward Jan, whether it´s in prayer format or not, would be appreciated.
I don´t have any more plans today other than homework. It´s not due till Tuesday, though, so maybe I´ll just do a little and then curl up with a book and try to forget about the world for a while.
I´ll write again soon,
Bethany
This morning we went to the Rastro, which is this flea market type thing in the streets. There were about 3 or 4 streets with stalls on both sides filled with all kinds of things, most for really cheap. It was fun to see, but we only spent about 30-45 minutes there because Jen had to leave to go to mass with her senora, and so we all left. Katie and I walked back to Sol via the Plaza Mayor, where there was supposed to be some kind of celebration for Carnaval. All there was was a man who was doing something with a backhoe. I think it was supposed to be some kind of dance with the man and the backhoe. He was in the scoop and it raised up, and then he hung from it and then curled up, and it was weird. It was kind of boring so we just walked by and didn´t stay. Katie and I went to Corte Ingles to get shower shoes for our hostel next weekend in Barcelona, but the cheapest flip flops we could find were 15.50 euros! I wasn´t about to pay that much. Maybe once it gets closer to summer I can find something cheaper. I´ll figure something else out in the mean time.
I came to the internet cafe today to post pictures on Facebook. I got my email for the first time since Thursday, and there were two from my aunt. For those of you who don´t know, which I assume is most of you, my aunt Janny has been at the Mayo clinic for the past week and a half or so. They found out that she has amyloidosis, which is a blood disease that involves the heart, nervous system, and skin. Without treatment, she could die within 3 years. With treatment, which involves a lot of chemotherapy or bone marrow transplant, the time of survival is 5-10 years and growing with each passing year. But there´s a 1 in 3 chance of not surviving the first year of treatment. Her disease is still in the early stages, even though the symptoms have been going on for 5 years. The doctors said she probably wouldn´t have problems with the transplant, and that it could happen as early as April. The danger would be that the treatments wouldn´t work and it would continue to spread. (If I´ve mistaken anything here, please correct me.) So that was a blow. I started crying in the middle of the internet cafe. Fortuanately, I don´t think anyone noticed. It´s a scary thing to find out someone you love may not have as long to live as everyone expected. She´s got an amazing attitude about everything; far better than I would have. She said she knows God is looking out for her, and that whatever happens He will be there. (Great, now I´m starting to cry again.) All of this really makes me wish I weren´t halfway across the world. I would like nothing more than to be with my family now. But obviously that can´t happen. So there´s really nothing for me to do other than pray. Any good wishes you would be willing to will toward Jan, whether it´s in prayer format or not, would be appreciated.
I don´t have any more plans today other than homework. It´s not due till Tuesday, though, so maybe I´ll just do a little and then curl up with a book and try to forget about the world for a while.
I´ll write again soon,
Bethany
February 21
2-21
We went toSegovia Segovia or Toledo Segovia Roman Empire still standing and in almost perfect condition. It was enormous, and all put together without mortar and at a time without modern engineering. I don’t know how they got the stones that high up in the air. The wonders of slave labor, I guess. There was a place where you could go up near the top and get a view of the whole city and the surrounding countryside, bordered by mountains. Beautiful!Roman Empire . It has nine rooms that visitors can see, where the royalty lived. There’s the throne room, the royal bedroom, the chapel, and various other places. In one, called the Room of the Monarchs, there are little busts of all the kings of Asturias, Leon, and Castilla lining the walls just below the ceiling. I’m not when it was built, but there are tons of them so it had to be a little later. The brochure says it was commissioned by Felipe II, and if I knew my Spanish history a little better I might be able to tell you when he ruled (I just looked it up, and I actually did know! I just had a brain-fart. We studied him in class last semester. He was the king of Emperor Carlos V and he ruled in the late 1500s). The rooms were all really lavishly decorated, of course, with lots of red velvet and tapestries and paintings. We were actually allowed to take pictures here! I need to get to the internet café to post a bunch of pictures. (Stupid school won’t let me download ActiveX to upload them. Hrm.) In addition to the courtly rooms there was an armory, which was exciting. It was a lot smaller than the one at the royal palace in Madrid Royal Artillery School
We found a kebop (sp?) restaurant to eat at that had a great view of the aqueduct. It’s funny: I’m inSpain Granada
After lunch we went to the Catedral de Segovia. I love these cathedrals! They’re so delightfully European! This one is technically the last Gothic cathedral, but it has a lot of the Renaissance aesthetics, with it’s concept of space and luminosity. I’m looking at the brochure as I type this, in case you couldn’t tell. J This cathedral wasn’t nearly as opulent as the one inToledo
After the cathedral it was getting late-ish, so we checked the bus schedule to get back to the train station. We had about a half hour before the bus came, so we wandered around some of the streets, going in tourist shops and stuff like that. We took the bus back at 5:30, because we thought the train left at 5:57. But it turns out we were looking at the arrival schedule, not the departure schedule. The train didn’t leave until 6:55. So for 45 minutes we wandered around near the train station, which is on the outskirts, and only has these little cheapo stores that have a bunch of crap that no one would actually buy. Then we went back to the station and sat in the warm until the train came. It was a quicker trip on the way home than the way there. I think it took less than two hours to get back intoMadrid
Tomorrow we’re going to the Rastro, which is a big flea market inMadrid Madrid Brazil
Well, I don’t have anything more to write about now, and I’m really tired, so I’m going to bed. I’ll write tomorrow about the Rastro and Carnaval.
¡Hasta mañana!
Bethany
We went to
We found a kebop (sp?) restaurant to eat at that had a great view of the aqueduct. It’s funny: I’m in
After lunch we went to the Catedral de Segovia. I love these cathedrals! They’re so delightfully European! This one is technically the last Gothic cathedral, but it has a lot of the Renaissance aesthetics, with it’s concept of space and luminosity. I’m looking at the brochure as I type this, in case you couldn’t tell. J This cathedral wasn’t nearly as opulent as the one in
After the cathedral it was getting late-ish, so we checked the bus schedule to get back to the train station. We had about a half hour before the bus came, so we wandered around some of the streets, going in tourist shops and stuff like that. We took the bus back at 5:30, because we thought the train left at 5:57. But it turns out we were looking at the arrival schedule, not the departure schedule. The train didn’t leave until 6:55. So for 45 minutes we wandered around near the train station, which is on the outskirts, and only has these little cheapo stores that have a bunch of crap that no one would actually buy. Then we went back to the station and sat in the warm until the train came. It was a quicker trip on the way home than the way there. I think it took less than two hours to get back into
Tomorrow we’re going to the Rastro, which is a big flea market in
Well, I don’t have anything more to write about now, and I’m really tired, so I’m going to bed. I’ll write tomorrow about the Rastro and Carnaval.
¡Hasta mañana!
February 20
2-20
Today I met with Jeannette to plan our trip to
I also had my first choir rehearsal today. Patricia met me at the train station and drove me the rest of the way. We were a little late because I had to come all the way from Jen’s house (almost an hour away) and then we got lost driving there, but we got there around 6:30. I had a mini voice test so the director could see my range, and then I jumped into the choir. I would guess there are about 50 people in it, both students and community members. We’re doing all Handel music for this concert in honor of the 200 or something-th anniversary of his death. I was happy to find that out; I wasn’t sure what kind of music to expect. And I just did a concert with all Handel, so I’m nice and practiced up. Even though it’s been over two months since I’ve sung seriously. The music is all in Latin or English, which is kinda funny. I go to
The director arranged for someone who lives near me to show me how to get back home, since I had come in a rather circuitous route. She was a very nice woman who talked to me about lots of different things and gave me her phone number in case I had any questions. We took the train home, but the director drove us to the train station, so I’m still not sure how exactly to get there. Next week we’re going to take the metro and compare travel times. I think the train would be faster, but it’s kind of far from the campus.
When I got home at a little after 11, I found that Patricia and Jen had been calling and calling, worried about where I was. I realized that Rosaura and Manuel had forgotten I was going to choir. I had told Rosaura I would be back in the afternoon, but the planning session with Jen took a lot longer than I expected, so I went directly to choir. Yesterday Rosaura asked me if I was going to choir and I told her I was going today, but I guess I didn’t tell her what time. They were apparently waiting for me to eat, and Manuel called Patricia, which made her worried, so she called a couple times, then she called Jen, who then got worried and called me several times, and it was a big mess. Plus I got another scolding from Rosaura for not calling and letting them know I wasn’t going to be there for supper. Another one of those ‘you need to use your head and have some sense’ talks. I apologized profusely, but she kept going on, and there’s only so many times I can say I’m sorry. Especially when she did know I was going to choir. Yes, I should have made sure she remembered, but we did talk about it yesterday. Of course, when I told her I thought she knew because we had talked last night, she said she didn’t remember. I sometimes remember if her memory is all there, because she tends to ask me things several times. So I should have taken that into account and made sure she knew. But I didn’t. And I got scolded. Whatever. I’m not taking this one to heart.
So yeah, that was my night. I have to get up early tomorrow so I can meet the girls at 9:15 to go to
Good night,
Thursday, February 19, 2009
February 19
Hola
It´s been a few since I wrote a blog, so I thought I´d catch you up on my life. Not much exciting has happened since the Granada trip. Just school as normal. It´s the end of the second week of classes, and things are settling into a nice little routine. I suddenly got loaded with homework on Tuesday, but most of it isn´t due till next week, so I´ve gotten it all done already. Which is good, because I don´t want to have to worry about it this weekend. I think my favorite class so far is Spanish. We´re learning phrases and expressions that are actually useful in everyday life. How to invite someone somewhere, how to ask for things at stores and restaurants, that sort of thing. The professor is really nice, too. She´s the one who teaches Colloquial Spanish, which I wanted to take but couldn´t, so she knows all the modern phrases and stuff. I also like cultural studies. We watched La lengua de las mariposas yesterday, which means The Tongue of the Butterflies or something like that. It´s a movie about a boy going to school during the second republic in Spain, right before Franco. It was really good, but had a sad ending. The professor in that class is really cool too. In literature we started reading a book called Sonata de Otoño (Fall Sonata) that´s from the beginning of the 1900s. It´s really flowery and romantic and hard to follow. Luckily, it´s pretty short. We had to read half of it for next tuesday, and i finished that yesterday. Not sure I understood all of it, but hey, that´s what class discussion is for. History, the class I was most excited for, has turned out to be kind of boring. I like learning about the history of Spain, but it´s nothing but lecture for 3 hours a week. We just got into the middle ages, after the fall of the Roman Empire. Maybe once we´ve gotten into material I know more about it´ll become more interesting. My last class is film, and we´re studying surrealism now. We´ll be watching Un perro andalúz (An Andalusian Dog) today. He gave us a sheet with a synopsis, and it makes absolutely no sense. I don´t think I really like surrealism. Maybe I should hold back judgement until I see the movie, but I don´t have high hopes.
Tomorrow I´m getting together with Katie and Jen to plan a trip to Segovia this Saturday. It´s about an hour and a half bus ride away, so we´re going to do a day trip. Jen´s host mom is going with us. Apparently she knows a lot about the city and where we should go. I´m looking forward to it. We´re also going to plan to go to Austria for the beginning of spring break. I´m really excited for that! I´m glad I´ll be able to go then instead of in May because it didn´t sound like Brent and Danny were that interested in it, and then we can spend more time in places where they really want to go. I really want to see Vienna, Salzburg, and the Alps. I think we´ll go for 3 or 4 days, depending on when Jen´s other plans start. Katie will be in London, so she won´t go with. I don´t know yet what I´m going to do for the rest of spring break. I have yet to figure that out. I´m thinking about spending a day or two at the end of Holy Week in Toledo or Segovia or somewhere close by so that I won´t have to pay for a hostel. All the hostels are probably sold out already anyway. Holy week is a huge deal here. They have processions all day where they take the statues out from all the little churches and march them down the streets of the city to the cathedral and back again. It´ll be interesting to see, but I don´t necessarily want to spend two days looking at processions.
This weekend is Carnaval. Patricia´s sending us a link to the website that has all the activities. I want to check out some of the parades and stuff. A lot of the bars and stuff have free drinks, and I´m not really sure what other things there are going on. I think it´s not like Brazil where everyone dresses up everywhere. Some people dress up, but not as many.
Next weekend I´m going to Barcelona with Katie and her friend! I´m very excited!! Her friend is studing in Germany, I think, and he wants to see Madrid. So they´re going to hit the Madrid hotspots on Friday, then we´re taking the midnight bus to Barcelona and staying there till Sunday night. It´s about a 7-8 hour bus trip. Katie´s dad knows someone whose sister or something has a hostel in Barcelona, so we´re hoping to stay there for cheap or free (cross fingers).
Well, I´ve got to go to class. Ta ta!
Bethany
It´s been a few since I wrote a blog, so I thought I´d catch you up on my life. Not much exciting has happened since the Granada trip. Just school as normal. It´s the end of the second week of classes, and things are settling into a nice little routine. I suddenly got loaded with homework on Tuesday, but most of it isn´t due till next week, so I´ve gotten it all done already. Which is good, because I don´t want to have to worry about it this weekend. I think my favorite class so far is Spanish. We´re learning phrases and expressions that are actually useful in everyday life. How to invite someone somewhere, how to ask for things at stores and restaurants, that sort of thing. The professor is really nice, too. She´s the one who teaches Colloquial Spanish, which I wanted to take but couldn´t, so she knows all the modern phrases and stuff. I also like cultural studies. We watched La lengua de las mariposas yesterday, which means The Tongue of the Butterflies or something like that. It´s a movie about a boy going to school during the second republic in Spain, right before Franco. It was really good, but had a sad ending. The professor in that class is really cool too. In literature we started reading a book called Sonata de Otoño (Fall Sonata) that´s from the beginning of the 1900s. It´s really flowery and romantic and hard to follow. Luckily, it´s pretty short. We had to read half of it for next tuesday, and i finished that yesterday. Not sure I understood all of it, but hey, that´s what class discussion is for. History, the class I was most excited for, has turned out to be kind of boring. I like learning about the history of Spain, but it´s nothing but lecture for 3 hours a week. We just got into the middle ages, after the fall of the Roman Empire. Maybe once we´ve gotten into material I know more about it´ll become more interesting. My last class is film, and we´re studying surrealism now. We´ll be watching Un perro andalúz (An Andalusian Dog) today. He gave us a sheet with a synopsis, and it makes absolutely no sense. I don´t think I really like surrealism. Maybe I should hold back judgement until I see the movie, but I don´t have high hopes.
Tomorrow I´m getting together with Katie and Jen to plan a trip to Segovia this Saturday. It´s about an hour and a half bus ride away, so we´re going to do a day trip. Jen´s host mom is going with us. Apparently she knows a lot about the city and where we should go. I´m looking forward to it. We´re also going to plan to go to Austria for the beginning of spring break. I´m really excited for that! I´m glad I´ll be able to go then instead of in May because it didn´t sound like Brent and Danny were that interested in it, and then we can spend more time in places where they really want to go. I really want to see Vienna, Salzburg, and the Alps. I think we´ll go for 3 or 4 days, depending on when Jen´s other plans start. Katie will be in London, so she won´t go with. I don´t know yet what I´m going to do for the rest of spring break. I have yet to figure that out. I´m thinking about spending a day or two at the end of Holy Week in Toledo or Segovia or somewhere close by so that I won´t have to pay for a hostel. All the hostels are probably sold out already anyway. Holy week is a huge deal here. They have processions all day where they take the statues out from all the little churches and march them down the streets of the city to the cathedral and back again. It´ll be interesting to see, but I don´t necessarily want to spend two days looking at processions.
This weekend is Carnaval. Patricia´s sending us a link to the website that has all the activities. I want to check out some of the parades and stuff. A lot of the bars and stuff have free drinks, and I´m not really sure what other things there are going on. I think it´s not like Brazil where everyone dresses up everywhere. Some people dress up, but not as many.
Next weekend I´m going to Barcelona with Katie and her friend! I´m very excited!! Her friend is studing in Germany, I think, and he wants to see Madrid. So they´re going to hit the Madrid hotspots on Friday, then we´re taking the midnight bus to Barcelona and staying there till Sunday night. It´s about a 7-8 hour bus trip. Katie´s dad knows someone whose sister or something has a hostel in Barcelona, so we´re hoping to stay there for cheap or free (cross fingers).
Well, I´ve got to go to class. Ta ta!
Bethany
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