I thought my last entry was the last, but I have been neglected. Thus, I have time for another entry. My heart is practically bleeding right now because my Spanish family left me alone in the apartment for the last 3 hours of my time in Pamplona. My parents went out and so did Iker and Amaia. I´m heartbroken, seriously. I knew that we all didn´t have the best relationship ever, but I pictured my last night in Pamplona as a nice family dinner at least and at least sitting around the tv together. I thought they would stay up with me until I had to leave at 1:30 in the morning and we would say our goodbyes then.
The night started out ok. Beatriz came over to hang out, so I talked with her and Amaia for a while. Then, I met my intercambio Estefanía for a while, we walked around the city and talked for the last time. That was enjoyable and extra-interesting because there is a manifestation (protest, gathering, show of spirit, whatever you want to call it) for the basques in Navarra today. Basically, people are showing their nationality for this region of Spain... which is a long and controversial subject that I have learned a lot about since I have been here, but it´s not really clear enough for me to explain it in a blog. It´s a big scary issue with a terrorist group called ETA that wants to separate this region (it´s called a autonomous community, and Navarra is one of 17 of them that exist in spain. pamplona is a city within navarra) from the rest of the country. It has been a big issue for a long time and it will probably continue to be an issue for a long time. Anyhow, nothing too scary was happening today when we walked around... a lot of people with flags, people came in from all parts of spain i guess. It was packed packed packed in the old part of the city. The only violence i saw was when we had to run through the street for ten seconds because i believe a cop fired a shot. That´s the second time that has happened to me in Pamplona, and honestly, it´s pretty freaky. I don´t think it´s a real bullet, but it´s like a sound to scare people away or something. Not quite sure,but I´m glad i was with Estefanía this time and Amaia last time it happened, closer to the beginning of my stay here.
When I returned home, Amaia revealed to me the beautiful cake that she had made for my goodbye. It was so sweet. It was all chocolate with chocolate frosting cuz she knows how much I love it and she even made home-made hot chocolate to drink too cuz she knows i don´t drink coffee. Bea, Amaia, Iker and I ate and drank together for one last time and it was pretty sad. We talked, but eventually Bea had plans to meet her friends for dinner.
That´s when things got horrible. My spanish parents came into the kitchen all dressed up and ready to go out. I was shocked. I didn´t expect them to be going out. i know it´s saturday night, but it´s my last night here! they didn´t invite me to do anything with them! and pilar goes into this whole speech on how she knows that i have had a rough time here and that i haven´t really liked it but i learn from every experience and she hopes that i have a good future and blah blah blah. and i was like, no! i didn´t NOT enjoy myself here! she made it sound like i hated the experience! i was trying to explain that i loved the experience. yea, i know i was upset at times about my health and such, but she totally must have taken it the wrong way the whole time, thinking that i didn´t like spain or living in her house. maybe that´s why she has been so cold to me in the past few weeks - because she thinks i don´t like living in her house. which has been true lately, i suppose, but she made me seem like i hated everything here, which is so untrue. it really hurt my feelings. but what hurt my feelings the most is the impression i get that she and pepe really don´t like me.
and when i say this, i really mean it. yesterday, and various times in the past, they have talked to me about how much they loved some of the past ohio kids that have stayed with thim. and yesterday they were going on and on about how great this kid daniel was. and they were saying how daniel is very maja (a great person) and they were like ¨we´re not talking about you, we´re talking about another boy who stayed with us¨ and they just talked for so long about him and then anohter boy that stayed with them, and it made me so upset. because i lived with this family for three months and they don´t even like me one bit. and it´s obvious to me. i´m not just saying it. i have a hard time dealing with the fact that people don´t like me, but especially when they are people who i wanted to consider my own family and that i have been trying to hard to be perfect for and trying so hard to be polite for and trying so hard to be close to. it just really hurts. and it was so evident that they could care less if i was leaving tonight. they just left me here in the house, barely any goodbye at all.
i gave them their gift, and i put a lot of time into writing the note. i dont´think they even really liked it much. they didn´t even look at the note i wrote them and i wanted to shout at them to read it because maybe then they would understand that i really have enjoyed the experience and they got the complete wrong impression of things.
i was so broken when they left the house. so broken. i feel like this goodbye was the worst goodbye it could be because they don´t even care that i´m going to be gone and they´ll never see me again. i´m just like this object to them, something to feed for a few months and i have tried to hard to improve my communication and adapt to their culture, but it doesn´t even matter to them. and so here i am sitting at their computer for the last time, crying as i type this. just crying. because how can you live with a family for three months and then they just leave with barely a goodbye? it kills me. it really hurts. how is it that i feel like i tried so hard to just fit in and be a good part of their family and they left me with such a goodbye?
ouch.
then, you see, Bea might very possibly be my favorite person here in Spain. She and I really get along so well, she´s such a nice girl, and she really makes the effort to make sure I understand what they are talking about and that I feel comfortable (for the most part). She´s so sweet and so fun, and when she left, the sadness increased. maybe she´s the only one who really liked me in the end out of the family and friends here.
next, Amaia and Iker decided to go to a movie. we barely spoke beforehand, Amaia was just getting ready, and there weren´t many words to exchange when we parted. I didn´t really know what to say at all. I was just hurt. That´s all I was. That´s all I am. I´m wasting my last few hours in Pamplona here by myself because I have nobody to be with and nobody who wants to be with me. After three months spending time with these people, it´s just a harsh reality.
So maybe it´s for the better. Maybe this hurt just proves how important my real family and friends are and how much I really value them. I´m going to come home to something so much better than this.
So, maybe my goodbyes here have been bittersweet. It doesn´t change how I feel abou tthis experience and Spain. They have both been incredible, unregrettable, life-changing. I have learn so much, but the most important thing I have learned about is who I am. There has been the good and there has been the bad. But in the end, I´m a different Danielle. I´m a different person. I don´t mean that I´m gonna be noticably different to people... I´ll probably act the same. But inside, I know more about myself, how I think, how I look at the world, how things happen, how things change. I can´t think for a second that this wasn´t worth my while.
Life is always changing. We are always adapting. My life is about to change in a huge way once again. But this time I´m ready for it, and I´m ready for everything. I´m ready to start this next part of my life, to move on from this spanish experience. It all starts now and I´m ready.
Nos vamos en América.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
this is the last.
i haven´t had much time to write lately because the last few days in a foreign country are overwhelming and there´s a lot to get done.
the thing is, i´m happy right now. and it´s not a happy like ¨hey, i´m finally getting out of here¨ happy. it´s an i´m-satifsfied-with-life-right-now happy. it´s a strange tranquility i have right now. i thought i was going to be feeling all these regrets about things i haven´t done or seen or how i´m spending my last moments and everything, but it´s not. yes, it´s sad because i know everything i do is for the last time. but this is reality and my time here has come to an end. i have taken advantage of it and done the things i have wanted and now it is just time to move on.
i´m sad too. of course i´m sad. i know there are so many things i´m going to miss, so many things i´ll look back at. and i probably will regret things i didn´t do. but right now i´m ok with where i´m at.
the past few days, like i said, have been pretty crazy. we had our final dinner last night, an incredible closing to this trip. i just realized how well i had gotten to know the whole group and my professors and how influential everything has been for me. it was the most fancy shmancy meal i have ever eaten in my life and i thought i would be immobile for about 3 hours after i finished... good thing we all had to make speeches so i got to sit for a while. we had salads with mushrooms and fish, a slab of artichoke pastry (ugh, didn´t eat that one... that´s one thing i don´t think i´ll ever grow to like), a lamb bone huge caveman piece of meat, the best steak i have ever eaten in my life, and then home-made ice cream (vanilla-cinnamon and black licorice maybe.. they were very interesting and different) with little rice cookies. wow. so then the professors put the ball in our court and suprised us by telling us we needed to each made an impromptu speech... ok so not really a speech, but giving a memory from our time here. and that´s harder than you would think to prepare something good in another language on the spot. but i think i did alright. many people thanked everyone and said how they were glad they made such good friends and had fun, etc. some were pretty deep. i talked about how this experience has changed me so much... how i came in being a pretty dependent person, and i think now that i have overcome some fears and lived in another country, i can face change more easily. i said how we have all seen more in three months than probably in the rest of our lives and how it has been such an experience. and then i told a story about how i tried to make a joke the other day that totally backfired cuz it´s pretty hard to make a joke in another language, and you just have to be able to laugh at yourself and laugh at life because that´s the only way you make it through.
(p.s. i´ll try to explain the joke. we were in the museum of navarra with the class and our professor ana. there was a statue that ana was describing to me and kristen that was the virgin mary sitting on her mother (santa ana? not sure) and baby jesus was sitting on virgin mary. so it was a succession of the three showing the generations, and each one was small enough to fit on the others lap. it struck me as a funny idea because i imagined myself sitting on my mom and her sitting on nana and how that´s so physically impossible and would be really awkward and weird. so i wanted to express that, and in english i would have said something like ¨yea, my mom, grandma and i do that all the time too¨, but in spanish, it just came out horribly! it probably sounded like this to ana: ¨i wish i could sit on my mom and she could sit on her mom. but that would be hard!¨ kristen and i laughed out loud for like 5 minutes because it´s just so freakin weird that we can´t joke in spanish and that we sound like total jerks.
anyway, after all the students spoke, the professors did and gave out awards and i got all emotional. i feel so close with my professors... they were seriously the most supportive and best people ever. i can´t imagine this experience without them. they weren´t only being our teachers, but our parents, in a way. they were always asking how my bumps or my eye was, really concerned about me. concerned about everyone. just so caring. nelson almost always came with me every time i needed to go to the doctor, and when he was unable to, ana came instead. these things were just completely voluntary... on their own time. you just don´t find people like these every day. ana and nekane, two of the professors, came with us to the bar after the dinner last night! we were dancing with them and drinking with them. they are just so cool. i can´t even describe it. and i´m not saying cool like they are trying to be young students or anything, but i mean cool as in amazing people. incredible people who have so much heart for what they do and care so much about the students. i´m really gonna miss that feeling because i think it comes rarely in athens.
anyway, kristen, taryn, kate, and i went to the discotecas last night. those are the spanish bars that are opened from 3 to 6 in the morning and you just dance the night away... crazy. not much like that in athens, or in any city that i have been to for that matter. it´s common in spain. i hadn´t gone yet, so i went and decided to take advantage of the last spanish night. it was amazing, so much good music and i loved it! i love dancing. the spanish guys can be preeetty creepy, and when i mean creepy, i mean like that scene in the little mermaid where ariel is stuck in ursulla´s world and all those creepy things are grabbing her and trying to pull her down. cuz when we were leaving, all these guys just like stroke your arms and call you beautiful and it´s hilarious. they never try to dance with you though. never. it´s hilarious. we were discussing how spanish boys (when drunk, usually) will just be walking down the street talking normally to each other and all of a sudden they see you and say ¨ohhh guapa guapa guapa, bonita chicas¨ and then resume their conversations immediately as if nothing had happened. however, in normal bars that aren´t discotecas, boys are not very forward and people don´t intermingle with people they didn´t come with as often as it seems they do in the u.s.
anyhow, what else? i have been packing all day, i think i´m gonna fit everything, phew! most of the stuff i bought is pretty small and i made sure of it.
i had lunch with the fam today and it was pretty usual. i´m not gonna miss them all that much. today, for example, they were talking about scholarships for art students and amaia and her mom were arguing about the availability and pepe yelled at pilar for negating everything amaia said. i was just annoyed because they ignore that i´m even there most of the time and don´t even try to make a conversation that i can join and it´s like i´m just sitting there to eat for survival and i´m just not a real person. i hate that feeling and i´m ready to be done with it. i´m so ready to feel like i live with my family or my friends who really care about me and don´t just treat me like i´m a daughter but not have feelings for me like a daughter. i feel like pilar thinks she can treat me as if i need to follow everything she says, but yet, i have none of the positive benefits that you can get from that - it´s hard to explain, but when it´s just motherly but without love, it´s just the worst combination ever. it´s like the classic ¨you´re not my mom!¨ line.
i got them a tour guide of the u.s. and wrote a really nice note to them in it and highlighted all the places they should visit if they ever come. that´s about as nice as i´m gonna get because i don´t really feel all that close to them after all this time. sadly. i don´t. i´m actually excited to leave this house.
well, it´s weird to think i´m summing up my entire experience in this entry because i feel like i´m not summing much of anything up. i will probably have to go back in after i get home and write some conclusions about everything. i have a long bus ride, flight, layover, flight, drive home, etc. to worry about and then i´ll be home for a week. i´ll write again then.
the thing is, i´m happy right now. and it´s not a happy like ¨hey, i´m finally getting out of here¨ happy. it´s an i´m-satifsfied-with-life-right-now happy. it´s a strange tranquility i have right now. i thought i was going to be feeling all these regrets about things i haven´t done or seen or how i´m spending my last moments and everything, but it´s not. yes, it´s sad because i know everything i do is for the last time. but this is reality and my time here has come to an end. i have taken advantage of it and done the things i have wanted and now it is just time to move on.
i´m sad too. of course i´m sad. i know there are so many things i´m going to miss, so many things i´ll look back at. and i probably will regret things i didn´t do. but right now i´m ok with where i´m at.
the past few days, like i said, have been pretty crazy. we had our final dinner last night, an incredible closing to this trip. i just realized how well i had gotten to know the whole group and my professors and how influential everything has been for me. it was the most fancy shmancy meal i have ever eaten in my life and i thought i would be immobile for about 3 hours after i finished... good thing we all had to make speeches so i got to sit for a while. we had salads with mushrooms and fish, a slab of artichoke pastry (ugh, didn´t eat that one... that´s one thing i don´t think i´ll ever grow to like), a lamb bone huge caveman piece of meat, the best steak i have ever eaten in my life, and then home-made ice cream (vanilla-cinnamon and black licorice maybe.. they were very interesting and different) with little rice cookies. wow. so then the professors put the ball in our court and suprised us by telling us we needed to each made an impromptu speech... ok so not really a speech, but giving a memory from our time here. and that´s harder than you would think to prepare something good in another language on the spot. but i think i did alright. many people thanked everyone and said how they were glad they made such good friends and had fun, etc. some were pretty deep. i talked about how this experience has changed me so much... how i came in being a pretty dependent person, and i think now that i have overcome some fears and lived in another country, i can face change more easily. i said how we have all seen more in three months than probably in the rest of our lives and how it has been such an experience. and then i told a story about how i tried to make a joke the other day that totally backfired cuz it´s pretty hard to make a joke in another language, and you just have to be able to laugh at yourself and laugh at life because that´s the only way you make it through.
(p.s. i´ll try to explain the joke. we were in the museum of navarra with the class and our professor ana. there was a statue that ana was describing to me and kristen that was the virgin mary sitting on her mother (santa ana? not sure) and baby jesus was sitting on virgin mary. so it was a succession of the three showing the generations, and each one was small enough to fit on the others lap. it struck me as a funny idea because i imagined myself sitting on my mom and her sitting on nana and how that´s so physically impossible and would be really awkward and weird. so i wanted to express that, and in english i would have said something like ¨yea, my mom, grandma and i do that all the time too¨, but in spanish, it just came out horribly! it probably sounded like this to ana: ¨i wish i could sit on my mom and she could sit on her mom. but that would be hard!¨ kristen and i laughed out loud for like 5 minutes because it´s just so freakin weird that we can´t joke in spanish and that we sound like total jerks.
anyway, after all the students spoke, the professors did and gave out awards and i got all emotional. i feel so close with my professors... they were seriously the most supportive and best people ever. i can´t imagine this experience without them. they weren´t only being our teachers, but our parents, in a way. they were always asking how my bumps or my eye was, really concerned about me. concerned about everyone. just so caring. nelson almost always came with me every time i needed to go to the doctor, and when he was unable to, ana came instead. these things were just completely voluntary... on their own time. you just don´t find people like these every day. ana and nekane, two of the professors, came with us to the bar after the dinner last night! we were dancing with them and drinking with them. they are just so cool. i can´t even describe it. and i´m not saying cool like they are trying to be young students or anything, but i mean cool as in amazing people. incredible people who have so much heart for what they do and care so much about the students. i´m really gonna miss that feeling because i think it comes rarely in athens.
anyway, kristen, taryn, kate, and i went to the discotecas last night. those are the spanish bars that are opened from 3 to 6 in the morning and you just dance the night away... crazy. not much like that in athens, or in any city that i have been to for that matter. it´s common in spain. i hadn´t gone yet, so i went and decided to take advantage of the last spanish night. it was amazing, so much good music and i loved it! i love dancing. the spanish guys can be preeetty creepy, and when i mean creepy, i mean like that scene in the little mermaid where ariel is stuck in ursulla´s world and all those creepy things are grabbing her and trying to pull her down. cuz when we were leaving, all these guys just like stroke your arms and call you beautiful and it´s hilarious. they never try to dance with you though. never. it´s hilarious. we were discussing how spanish boys (when drunk, usually) will just be walking down the street talking normally to each other and all of a sudden they see you and say ¨ohhh guapa guapa guapa, bonita chicas¨ and then resume their conversations immediately as if nothing had happened. however, in normal bars that aren´t discotecas, boys are not very forward and people don´t intermingle with people they didn´t come with as often as it seems they do in the u.s.
anyhow, what else? i have been packing all day, i think i´m gonna fit everything, phew! most of the stuff i bought is pretty small and i made sure of it.
i had lunch with the fam today and it was pretty usual. i´m not gonna miss them all that much. today, for example, they were talking about scholarships for art students and amaia and her mom were arguing about the availability and pepe yelled at pilar for negating everything amaia said. i was just annoyed because they ignore that i´m even there most of the time and don´t even try to make a conversation that i can join and it´s like i´m just sitting there to eat for survival and i´m just not a real person. i hate that feeling and i´m ready to be done with it. i´m so ready to feel like i live with my family or my friends who really care about me and don´t just treat me like i´m a daughter but not have feelings for me like a daughter. i feel like pilar thinks she can treat me as if i need to follow everything she says, but yet, i have none of the positive benefits that you can get from that - it´s hard to explain, but when it´s just motherly but without love, it´s just the worst combination ever. it´s like the classic ¨you´re not my mom!¨ line.
i got them a tour guide of the u.s. and wrote a really nice note to them in it and highlighted all the places they should visit if they ever come. that´s about as nice as i´m gonna get because i don´t really feel all that close to them after all this time. sadly. i don´t. i´m actually excited to leave this house.
well, it´s weird to think i´m summing up my entire experience in this entry because i feel like i´m not summing much of anything up. i will probably have to go back in after i get home and write some conclusions about everything. i have a long bus ride, flight, layover, flight, drive home, etc. to worry about and then i´ll be home for a week. i´ll write again then.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
all is calm, all is right.
I thought things couldn´t get any worse about 5 hours ago. I called my parents freaking out, freaking out about who knows what? Nothing I was saying was even making sense and I definitely was letting my emotions take control of me in the wrong way. All I can say is thanks mom and dad (and Nicole cuz i´m sure you would have helped if you were at the office with them at the time). You really talked to some sense into me.
After my nervous freakout breakdown attack, I realized that things are ok. They are just ok. And maybe I´m superready to come home and be normal again, but I took a long walk and I´m seeing some things that, of course, I´m going to miss about Pamplona. That´s just inevitable. I don´t know if you can go anywhere and not take part of it home with you... and not have some regrets... and not have some things that you miss. That would just be impossible. So maybe I have been sitting here mourning my lonliness and frustrations a bit too much. I look at my overall outlook at this experience as positive. Of course, there have been times when I think I could not be more unhappy if I tried. And there have been times when I want to cry out of joy because I realize that life is just so amazing. There has been a huge range of emotions. Just because I have been going crazy lately DOES NOT mean that I am not glad I came. Times get tough, and I gotta get goin. I just have to be reminded of that every once in a while. So thanks to all you folks who have been there for me this whole time. It means the world to me.
Now that my mind is more clear, I can talk about my day and my weekend trip that I have been meaning to write about but have not had the concentration for.
Today: woke up super-early to resume studying for my exam that I had. The exam went well and I had my last dialectologia (bilingualism) class this morning where we reviewed for the exam. I need to study a bit, but I think I´ll be alright. I ate some lunch, felt bloated again and was a bit unhappy. So I get home, ready to hurl some serious weights across the room. I can´t tell you what I was even thinking. It was too much hurt and fear and frustration and stress and everything combined. So that´s where the phone call to the parents came in, and then it was all ok.
I went to the eye doctor for the last time... kinda sad... they know me by name easy by now and even smile at my little spanish faux-paus (can´t spell that) and comfort me in their little spanish ways (¨hombre claro¨ y ¨no te preocupes, no es nada¨). They made this appointment free... the doctor said the inflamation is almost non-existent once again (but who knows what will happen within a week, this has happened before and i don´t wanna get my hopes up)... and they gave me a little note to give to the english-speaking doctors when i get home. it was pleasant, and i survived without any professors by my side.
after, I walked through three of the parks in pamplona. i wanted to get some pictures to remember them by. first the tacoñera - it´s like a little zoo with birds and antelopes just sitting there and it´s freakin weird and pretty amazing. there´s a great view over the city and a fun playground that i climbed and some nice little mazes. next was yamaguchi, a park with a nice pond that didn´t excite me too much cuz it isn´t a place i frequent. i ended my park tour with the ciudadela, my favorite park of all. i have spent some major time walking around there and trying to run on the uneven ground and mosquito-filled paths. it´s wonderful... shaped like a star, lots of history there cuz it was built for defensive purposes back in the day. i like it a lot. i´m gonna miss my ciudadela.. it´s by my house and it´s always full of people.
i decided to buy a spanish tour guide book of the u.s. to give to my host family. it´s hard to pick out a gift that the whole family will like, but here´s my philosophy. they have tour guides of all these places in spain and seem to collect them. they are really interested in other cultures and places. and i´m gonna highlight and write little notes in it about the places in ohio that i will take them if they ever visit and tell them they will always have someone to stay with if they ever want to come. i´m gonna make it personal. they will never come visit, but it´s a nice thought, right?
then i went shopping at the corte ingles, the upscale wal-mart here. it´s pretty much the same and the exact opposite of wal-mart. all the main cities in spain have one and it´s huge. it has everything you could possibly want. however, it´s very different from wal-mart cuz it´s really super expensive and carries all this designer stuff. it´s fun to look around though. i found a cute blousy dress and a fun shirt but i couldn´t convince myself to by them. i have enough clothes and i just can´t seem to splurge.. even if it´s only a $30 splurge. i did buy a sweet pair of tights because tights are the coolest thing ever in spain and i´m bringing it back. they don´t wear them like they do in the states... you will all just have to wait and see how they do it when i bring them back... but i will probably be the only american freak trying to act like a spaniard. heh. i got more gifts to bring back home, and this concludes my search for gifts!! finally! i felt like it would never end.
i´m home now, transferring all the cd´s of amaia that i like to bring back home.
time to describe the weekend.
Game plan was bus rides all the way-
*Pamplona-Barcelona (Thursday night 1:30 am - Friday morn 6:00 am)
*Barcelona-Girona (Friday morn 8 am - Friday morn 10:30)
*Girona-Figueres (Friday night 11 pm - Friday night 11:30 pm.. ended up being 8-8:30 pm)
*Figueres-Roses (Saturday 2 pm - Saturday 2:30 pm)
*Roses-Barcelona (Saturday 4 pm - Saturday 6:30 pm)
*Barcelona-Pamplona (Sunday 8 am - Sunday 2 pm)
It all happened, don´t ask me how because catching that many buses and figuring out that many tickets and bus stations and changes and waking up early and going to sleep late and being crazy tourists... that´s a rough combination, I´ll tell you. I have never been so exhausted! And adventurous.
Here´s justification for the trip, we wanted to get to Girona to see The Call and the charming river that the city is on. We had to get to Barcelona to get there. We had to go to Figueres to see the Salvador Dalí Museum, the second most famous in Spain, which came highly regarded by Aunt Fran and Sanford. We then had to see a city on the Costa Brava, supposedly the most beautiful coast of Spain because we were so close to it! So we searched for hours and found bus schedules that would fit.
So, we get to Barcelona, tired as always because, of course, it is casi (almost) impossible to sleep on the night bus. We catch our bus to Girona. Girona is bonita bonita bonita. A beautiful city. The river runs right through the middle, all the buildings and houses are along the river, and it´s a sight to see. It´s a cute little town, but the most fascinating part was The Call. It´s a section of the city that had a significant Jewish population back in the day, and they have presevered the long and winding streets and staircases. We checked out the museum and it was great. I learned so much about the history, something I felt was mine. After all the trips to churches and cathedrals, it was a nice little switch-a-roo and a nice change.
We spent the rest of the day shopping around, found an amazing Irish pub/cafe that reminded me of the Donkey and it make me super-happy. They served our hot chocolate in these steaming huge vase glasses and there were english books and even board games. I felt like I was at home and it was a good feeling, even though i was in the midst of a great trip. We eventually had to say goodbye to our beloved Girona and head to Figueres.
It was late by the time we arrived, so we checked into our hotel (50 bucks a night! woo-wee with free breakfast!) and it was heaven. After hostels and night buses, a hotel is the sweetest thing ever. I think I slept better than I have in 3 months, seriously. We got dinner at the restaurant owned by the hotel and it was fabulous! It was a little homey place with just two old spanish men and we had the whole place to ourself. It was pretty empty in the city that night. We got a big plate of pasta (yea, we are so spanish, huh?) but we can justify it by the fact that we ordered a small pitcher of sangria and that was spanish of us. Yum yum yum. We got strawberries for dessert and it was expensive but what do we care? We are only in Figueres once. We then slept our wonderful hotel sleep.
We woke up early to get to the Dalí museum, and boy oh boy, it was worth the trip. There were 22 rooms, all filled with different types of his work. The man is incredible, not one period of his art looks a thing like the last. Everything is distinct. The museum was genious... arranged in a maze of three floors, different types of his art at every corner, paintings on the ceilings, just so much to see. It was packed full of French kids and hard to move around, but it was just fantastic. We loved it.
Sadly, we then had to leave the city. There isn´t much else there, so it was ok. We made it to Roses in time for lunch and walked around trying to find the main bus station so we knew where to go to catch the next bus to Barcelona. A random man on the street helped us out and it´s just crazy. People here are so helpful and we made it around all these cities with maps (and sometimes without maps) and just the help of people. We made our way to the beach, gorgeous, lined with palm trees and hotels, little cafes and restaurants with patios, the whole vacation scene. It isn´t known to be the best on the costa brava, but it was the only one we could squeeze into our trip. We finally found a cafe to order bocadillas (long sandwiches) and went to the beach to eat them. It might have possibly been the windiest day of they year and we nearly got blown into the water and had several thousand pounds of sand in our ears by the time we left. But I don´t regret that trip. We had to see the beach while we had the chance. I have been to three beaches in three months. That´s gotta be a record, I think.
We left, headed back to Barcelona, the city of life. I love that city. Not as much as Granada, but it´s different. It´s the crazy city and Granada is the peaceful city. We checked into our hostel (seventeen thousand times superior to the last one we stayed at) and met some crazy american kids. Practically the whole hostel was American and it was pretty interesting. The owner joked that the only American left to come was Bush. And we almost puked at the thought of it.
So we went out for our night on the town, our last night in Barcelona (though I hope to be back there at some point in my life because it´s just the sweetest thing ever). We got another delicious dinner and headed off to find a bar. Everywhere was packed because there was a Barcelona-Madrid game on tv. We just walked around the city and got to know it once again and loved it more and more. It was just bursting full of people, full of life, full of energy. I got some gelato. Then we found a bar. We walked in, eventually got seats at the bar and that´s when the fun began. You see, we decided to try something other than sangria because it was a bit costly at that bar. We got mojitos. I didn´t know what a mojito was, but I guess Kristen did. I don´t even like mint or lime, so what was I thinking? Just trust the underage american girl to go to a bar and get some kinda crazy drink. We got the bill for the drinks, 8 euro a piece. 10 dollars for a drink! i almost peed myself. so we sat there for a half hour trying to justify how we could possibly spend 10 dollars on a drink. and we came up with a few things... it´s our last weekend trip and our last real night out in spain... we´re being classy and sipping on a sophisticated drink at a sophisticated bar... we only did this once... we haven´t really drank much since we got to spain... and it went on and on.
then we met the bachelor party. and this made it all worthwhile. you see, it was a bachelor party for a british 30 year old, and his friends were from ireland and scotland and all over. we ended up cracking up while talking to them all night. it wasn´t like a ¨hi i´m a creepy old man trying to pick you up¨ thing. they were having a good old time celebrating the party in barcelona, we were trying to understand their fun terminology that they were teaching us (bollocks, etc.) and they just kept telling us how much they loved the united states. and we kept saying how it´s crazy that they can just take a cheap weekend trip to barcelona to celebrate a bachelor´s party! i don´t know if i have laughed so hard or met anyone so funny in spain. and they bought us more mojitos (oh geez).
the bachelor party eventually left, and the bar was closing. the bartenders struck up a conversation with us (and kristen was obsessed and still is obsessed with pablo, the sexy argentinian bartender). we were enjoying practicing our spanish skills for a change (after all that english speaking with the bachelor party ha) and kristen was enjoying staring at pablo´s mohawk. they gave us free shots. then we left back for our hostel. it was a pretty fun night. i guess i can´t regret the two hours of sleep i had to go on for the rest of the day.
we headed back to pamplona in the morning, and there you go. my weekend. the last weekend of travel, and i can´t say i held back. 4 cities in 3 days is pretty darn good.
thats the story, that´s all there is.
4 more days in Spain. is life crazy or what?
After my nervous freakout breakdown attack, I realized that things are ok. They are just ok. And maybe I´m superready to come home and be normal again, but I took a long walk and I´m seeing some things that, of course, I´m going to miss about Pamplona. That´s just inevitable. I don´t know if you can go anywhere and not take part of it home with you... and not have some regrets... and not have some things that you miss. That would just be impossible. So maybe I have been sitting here mourning my lonliness and frustrations a bit too much. I look at my overall outlook at this experience as positive. Of course, there have been times when I think I could not be more unhappy if I tried. And there have been times when I want to cry out of joy because I realize that life is just so amazing. There has been a huge range of emotions. Just because I have been going crazy lately DOES NOT mean that I am not glad I came. Times get tough, and I gotta get goin. I just have to be reminded of that every once in a while. So thanks to all you folks who have been there for me this whole time. It means the world to me.
Now that my mind is more clear, I can talk about my day and my weekend trip that I have been meaning to write about but have not had the concentration for.
Today: woke up super-early to resume studying for my exam that I had. The exam went well and I had my last dialectologia (bilingualism) class this morning where we reviewed for the exam. I need to study a bit, but I think I´ll be alright. I ate some lunch, felt bloated again and was a bit unhappy. So I get home, ready to hurl some serious weights across the room. I can´t tell you what I was even thinking. It was too much hurt and fear and frustration and stress and everything combined. So that´s where the phone call to the parents came in, and then it was all ok.
I went to the eye doctor for the last time... kinda sad... they know me by name easy by now and even smile at my little spanish faux-paus (can´t spell that) and comfort me in their little spanish ways (¨hombre claro¨ y ¨no te preocupes, no es nada¨). They made this appointment free... the doctor said the inflamation is almost non-existent once again (but who knows what will happen within a week, this has happened before and i don´t wanna get my hopes up)... and they gave me a little note to give to the english-speaking doctors when i get home. it was pleasant, and i survived without any professors by my side.
after, I walked through three of the parks in pamplona. i wanted to get some pictures to remember them by. first the tacoñera - it´s like a little zoo with birds and antelopes just sitting there and it´s freakin weird and pretty amazing. there´s a great view over the city and a fun playground that i climbed and some nice little mazes. next was yamaguchi, a park with a nice pond that didn´t excite me too much cuz it isn´t a place i frequent. i ended my park tour with the ciudadela, my favorite park of all. i have spent some major time walking around there and trying to run on the uneven ground and mosquito-filled paths. it´s wonderful... shaped like a star, lots of history there cuz it was built for defensive purposes back in the day. i like it a lot. i´m gonna miss my ciudadela.. it´s by my house and it´s always full of people.
i decided to buy a spanish tour guide book of the u.s. to give to my host family. it´s hard to pick out a gift that the whole family will like, but here´s my philosophy. they have tour guides of all these places in spain and seem to collect them. they are really interested in other cultures and places. and i´m gonna highlight and write little notes in it about the places in ohio that i will take them if they ever visit and tell them they will always have someone to stay with if they ever want to come. i´m gonna make it personal. they will never come visit, but it´s a nice thought, right?
then i went shopping at the corte ingles, the upscale wal-mart here. it´s pretty much the same and the exact opposite of wal-mart. all the main cities in spain have one and it´s huge. it has everything you could possibly want. however, it´s very different from wal-mart cuz it´s really super expensive and carries all this designer stuff. it´s fun to look around though. i found a cute blousy dress and a fun shirt but i couldn´t convince myself to by them. i have enough clothes and i just can´t seem to splurge.. even if it´s only a $30 splurge. i did buy a sweet pair of tights because tights are the coolest thing ever in spain and i´m bringing it back. they don´t wear them like they do in the states... you will all just have to wait and see how they do it when i bring them back... but i will probably be the only american freak trying to act like a spaniard. heh. i got more gifts to bring back home, and this concludes my search for gifts!! finally! i felt like it would never end.
i´m home now, transferring all the cd´s of amaia that i like to bring back home.
time to describe the weekend.
Game plan was bus rides all the way-
*Pamplona-Barcelona (Thursday night 1:30 am - Friday morn 6:00 am)
*Barcelona-Girona (Friday morn 8 am - Friday morn 10:30)
*Girona-Figueres (Friday night 11 pm - Friday night 11:30 pm.. ended up being 8-8:30 pm)
*Figueres-Roses (Saturday 2 pm - Saturday 2:30 pm)
*Roses-Barcelona (Saturday 4 pm - Saturday 6:30 pm)
*Barcelona-Pamplona (Sunday 8 am - Sunday 2 pm)
It all happened, don´t ask me how because catching that many buses and figuring out that many tickets and bus stations and changes and waking up early and going to sleep late and being crazy tourists... that´s a rough combination, I´ll tell you. I have never been so exhausted! And adventurous.
Here´s justification for the trip, we wanted to get to Girona to see The Call and the charming river that the city is on. We had to get to Barcelona to get there. We had to go to Figueres to see the Salvador Dalí Museum, the second most famous in Spain, which came highly regarded by Aunt Fran and Sanford. We then had to see a city on the Costa Brava, supposedly the most beautiful coast of Spain because we were so close to it! So we searched for hours and found bus schedules that would fit.
So, we get to Barcelona, tired as always because, of course, it is casi (almost) impossible to sleep on the night bus. We catch our bus to Girona. Girona is bonita bonita bonita. A beautiful city. The river runs right through the middle, all the buildings and houses are along the river, and it´s a sight to see. It´s a cute little town, but the most fascinating part was The Call. It´s a section of the city that had a significant Jewish population back in the day, and they have presevered the long and winding streets and staircases. We checked out the museum and it was great. I learned so much about the history, something I felt was mine. After all the trips to churches and cathedrals, it was a nice little switch-a-roo and a nice change.
We spent the rest of the day shopping around, found an amazing Irish pub/cafe that reminded me of the Donkey and it make me super-happy. They served our hot chocolate in these steaming huge vase glasses and there were english books and even board games. I felt like I was at home and it was a good feeling, even though i was in the midst of a great trip. We eventually had to say goodbye to our beloved Girona and head to Figueres.
It was late by the time we arrived, so we checked into our hotel (50 bucks a night! woo-wee with free breakfast!) and it was heaven. After hostels and night buses, a hotel is the sweetest thing ever. I think I slept better than I have in 3 months, seriously. We got dinner at the restaurant owned by the hotel and it was fabulous! It was a little homey place with just two old spanish men and we had the whole place to ourself. It was pretty empty in the city that night. We got a big plate of pasta (yea, we are so spanish, huh?) but we can justify it by the fact that we ordered a small pitcher of sangria and that was spanish of us. Yum yum yum. We got strawberries for dessert and it was expensive but what do we care? We are only in Figueres once. We then slept our wonderful hotel sleep.
We woke up early to get to the Dalí museum, and boy oh boy, it was worth the trip. There were 22 rooms, all filled with different types of his work. The man is incredible, not one period of his art looks a thing like the last. Everything is distinct. The museum was genious... arranged in a maze of three floors, different types of his art at every corner, paintings on the ceilings, just so much to see. It was packed full of French kids and hard to move around, but it was just fantastic. We loved it.
Sadly, we then had to leave the city. There isn´t much else there, so it was ok. We made it to Roses in time for lunch and walked around trying to find the main bus station so we knew where to go to catch the next bus to Barcelona. A random man on the street helped us out and it´s just crazy. People here are so helpful and we made it around all these cities with maps (and sometimes without maps) and just the help of people. We made our way to the beach, gorgeous, lined with palm trees and hotels, little cafes and restaurants with patios, the whole vacation scene. It isn´t known to be the best on the costa brava, but it was the only one we could squeeze into our trip. We finally found a cafe to order bocadillas (long sandwiches) and went to the beach to eat them. It might have possibly been the windiest day of they year and we nearly got blown into the water and had several thousand pounds of sand in our ears by the time we left. But I don´t regret that trip. We had to see the beach while we had the chance. I have been to three beaches in three months. That´s gotta be a record, I think.
We left, headed back to Barcelona, the city of life. I love that city. Not as much as Granada, but it´s different. It´s the crazy city and Granada is the peaceful city. We checked into our hostel (seventeen thousand times superior to the last one we stayed at) and met some crazy american kids. Practically the whole hostel was American and it was pretty interesting. The owner joked that the only American left to come was Bush. And we almost puked at the thought of it.
So we went out for our night on the town, our last night in Barcelona (though I hope to be back there at some point in my life because it´s just the sweetest thing ever). We got another delicious dinner and headed off to find a bar. Everywhere was packed because there was a Barcelona-Madrid game on tv. We just walked around the city and got to know it once again and loved it more and more. It was just bursting full of people, full of life, full of energy. I got some gelato. Then we found a bar. We walked in, eventually got seats at the bar and that´s when the fun began. You see, we decided to try something other than sangria because it was a bit costly at that bar. We got mojitos. I didn´t know what a mojito was, but I guess Kristen did. I don´t even like mint or lime, so what was I thinking? Just trust the underage american girl to go to a bar and get some kinda crazy drink. We got the bill for the drinks, 8 euro a piece. 10 dollars for a drink! i almost peed myself. so we sat there for a half hour trying to justify how we could possibly spend 10 dollars on a drink. and we came up with a few things... it´s our last weekend trip and our last real night out in spain... we´re being classy and sipping on a sophisticated drink at a sophisticated bar... we only did this once... we haven´t really drank much since we got to spain... and it went on and on.
then we met the bachelor party. and this made it all worthwhile. you see, it was a bachelor party for a british 30 year old, and his friends were from ireland and scotland and all over. we ended up cracking up while talking to them all night. it wasn´t like a ¨hi i´m a creepy old man trying to pick you up¨ thing. they were having a good old time celebrating the party in barcelona, we were trying to understand their fun terminology that they were teaching us (bollocks, etc.) and they just kept telling us how much they loved the united states. and we kept saying how it´s crazy that they can just take a cheap weekend trip to barcelona to celebrate a bachelor´s party! i don´t know if i have laughed so hard or met anyone so funny in spain. and they bought us more mojitos (oh geez).
the bachelor party eventually left, and the bar was closing. the bartenders struck up a conversation with us (and kristen was obsessed and still is obsessed with pablo, the sexy argentinian bartender). we were enjoying practicing our spanish skills for a change (after all that english speaking with the bachelor party ha) and kristen was enjoying staring at pablo´s mohawk. they gave us free shots. then we left back for our hostel. it was a pretty fun night. i guess i can´t regret the two hours of sleep i had to go on for the rest of the day.
we headed back to pamplona in the morning, and there you go. my weekend. the last weekend of travel, and i can´t say i held back. 4 cities in 3 days is pretty darn good.
thats the story, that´s all there is.
4 more days in Spain. is life crazy or what?
Monday, March 12, 2007
serious procrastination problems!
ok, i seriosly can´t do anything right now. i can´t focus. i have my most important exam tomorrow and i just cannot do it i can´t study i can´t i can´t. my brain is so scattered and i can´t buckle down.
i can´t write about my last weekend traveling adventure, i can´t. it takes too much concentration and work and thought process. writing this blog was a bad idea because i can´t even write a good blog.
the point i´m making here is that leaving a foreign country is as difficult and possibly as complicated as arriving. i´m having all the same crazy rush of emotions as before, including psychoness.
normalcy! come back to me! i want life to be normal again so i can stop freaking out and just get a grip on things. i want to escape from this anxiousness to return and just be a normal person again and talk in English and go to WOUB and try to write stories and sit in my room at my computer with a bowl of cereal and meet at shively for dinner and occasionally do my laundry myself and stress out about journalism and see my family and see my other family at ou and go to the bike path and frequent ping and do all the important things in American life and go to restaurants and not be able to finish my meals because the portions are too large and not spend hundreds of dollars a week and be a normal college kid and stay up into the middle of the night just talking and listening to class debates and trying to participate in my own language and order hot chocolate without having to think of how to say it in spanish and use a community dorm bathroom that´s nasty and watch my doggy make my daddy crazy and hear about nicole´s several hundred fastpitch games and the controversy of my mom´s aerobics classes and eat brownies and get used to being underage for another two years and listen to the radio as my job and work my butt off again and look forward to ou´s weekends and to spring weather and to seeing all the people i love and being normal and being normal and being normal. once again. my real life once again. because i´m ready for that again. i´m ready.
i´m reading this blog over and i´m laughing at myself and how insane i appear. and not only do i appear it, i am it. i am crazy right now.
i have cankles. isn´t that great? here´s another burst of random. my eye medicine is once again helping me retain water and i have cankles. oh gosh, i wish they would just be normal ankles again and i could button my pants. how is it possible to be swimming for 50 minutes and still have cankles? oh, the horribleness of medicine. i want to be normal girl without being on medicine. and so the crazyness goes. for another five days because that´s all i have left of this spanish adventure of mine. it is bittersweet, to say the least. oh but i´m just wanting to be in my normal bed. be that athens or cleveland, i don´t care, because anything is more like home than here. give me back my double life as a mayfield heights resident and a college student. anything is more normal than being a screwed-up kid in spain just looking for a little bit of normalcy once again. it just seems that the more time that passes, the more crazy i get about wanting to go home, and it´s just because i know it´s nearing. i would be pefectly fine right now if i knew i had 3 more months to stay here. but because i know that i leave in less than a week, i´m going crazy with feelings and emotions and mood swings and energy bursts, and exhaustion. exhaustion. lack of energy. rushes of energy. inattentiveness. locura. locura means crazyness in spanish. random bursts of spanish words in my head, but still an inability for my thoughts to be completely in spanish because i feel like i suppress them. especially when i´m writing in blogs in english. probably the worst thing you could do to prevent spanish immersion. but i´m doing it anyway because memories and communication with my real life are more important to me than spanish immersion.
ok this blog is over. i promise to be calm and cool and collected soon and not be such a weirdo. ok, i´ll always be a weirdo, but at least i´ll be a sane weirdo?
i´m buckling down (so i say) and studying for this baby of a test. i will conquer all. watch the news because i´m taking over Spain tonight. single-handedly. just you wait and see.
i can´t write about my last weekend traveling adventure, i can´t. it takes too much concentration and work and thought process. writing this blog was a bad idea because i can´t even write a good blog.
the point i´m making here is that leaving a foreign country is as difficult and possibly as complicated as arriving. i´m having all the same crazy rush of emotions as before, including psychoness.
normalcy! come back to me! i want life to be normal again so i can stop freaking out and just get a grip on things. i want to escape from this anxiousness to return and just be a normal person again and talk in English and go to WOUB and try to write stories and sit in my room at my computer with a bowl of cereal and meet at shively for dinner and occasionally do my laundry myself and stress out about journalism and see my family and see my other family at ou and go to the bike path and frequent ping and do all the important things in American life and go to restaurants and not be able to finish my meals because the portions are too large and not spend hundreds of dollars a week and be a normal college kid and stay up into the middle of the night just talking and listening to class debates and trying to participate in my own language and order hot chocolate without having to think of how to say it in spanish and use a community dorm bathroom that´s nasty and watch my doggy make my daddy crazy and hear about nicole´s several hundred fastpitch games and the controversy of my mom´s aerobics classes and eat brownies and get used to being underage for another two years and listen to the radio as my job and work my butt off again and look forward to ou´s weekends and to spring weather and to seeing all the people i love and being normal and being normal and being normal. once again. my real life once again. because i´m ready for that again. i´m ready.
i´m reading this blog over and i´m laughing at myself and how insane i appear. and not only do i appear it, i am it. i am crazy right now.
i have cankles. isn´t that great? here´s another burst of random. my eye medicine is once again helping me retain water and i have cankles. oh gosh, i wish they would just be normal ankles again and i could button my pants. how is it possible to be swimming for 50 minutes and still have cankles? oh, the horribleness of medicine. i want to be normal girl without being on medicine. and so the crazyness goes. for another five days because that´s all i have left of this spanish adventure of mine. it is bittersweet, to say the least. oh but i´m just wanting to be in my normal bed. be that athens or cleveland, i don´t care, because anything is more like home than here. give me back my double life as a mayfield heights resident and a college student. anything is more normal than being a screwed-up kid in spain just looking for a little bit of normalcy once again. it just seems that the more time that passes, the more crazy i get about wanting to go home, and it´s just because i know it´s nearing. i would be pefectly fine right now if i knew i had 3 more months to stay here. but because i know that i leave in less than a week, i´m going crazy with feelings and emotions and mood swings and energy bursts, and exhaustion. exhaustion. lack of energy. rushes of energy. inattentiveness. locura. locura means crazyness in spanish. random bursts of spanish words in my head, but still an inability for my thoughts to be completely in spanish because i feel like i suppress them. especially when i´m writing in blogs in english. probably the worst thing you could do to prevent spanish immersion. but i´m doing it anyway because memories and communication with my real life are more important to me than spanish immersion.
ok this blog is over. i promise to be calm and cool and collected soon and not be such a weirdo. ok, i´ll always be a weirdo, but at least i´ll be a sane weirdo?
i´m buckling down (so i say) and studying for this baby of a test. i will conquer all. watch the news because i´m taking over Spain tonight. single-handedly. just you wait and see.
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Dear Nana and Papa,
So here is my response to your letter because I think this will be the easiest way for now because mail takes a long time to arrive and email is confusing.
Thanks for having the patience to try to figure out the whole email thing, but don´t worry, I like getting a letter just as much! Also, I can´t believe you took the time to read some of my spanish paper and could understand it... that must have taken some time!
Man, it sounds like you guys are doing A LOT of entertaining... I cannot even imagine having two families in a row like that. How are the Ilbuovich´s (i´m not sure if that´s how you spell it, it was hard to read)?
I´m sorry to hear about the tennis match, but there will be a lot more of those anyway in the future. Just know you could kick my butt any day and maybe then you will feel better. You guys are 6,000 times better than a 19-yr-old... pretty good if I say so myself.
How is the extention of the lanai coming? They better be done by May - that´s ridiculous already! Oh well, I´m sure it will be well worth it when it´s done. It´s just sad cuz I don´t know the next time I´ll be able to visit you guys and see it. I sure hope we take more frequent trips because I had the best time ever during winter break!
The botanical gardens sounds really beautiful. Cleveland´s is pretty cool too, so maybe we should take a trip there over the summer during the weekend. How does that sound? (I guess you can answer all these questions by phone cuz I´ll be home in 10 days! Crazy!)
Now, here´s the time where I can respond to your page of questions. Ready, set, go.
Are you taking any more trips?
Yup, you can read about where I´m going for my last trip this weekend in the blog before this. I´ll probably post information when I get back on Sunday or Monday so you will have the full update then. I¨m really excited! It´s to places that come highly-recommended from Aunt Fran and Sanford, so they should be amazing.
Is the Spanish coming any easier?
It´s coming a lot lot lot easier now. I can make sentences... with a little struggle, but it doesn´t take as much effort now. I can sound more natural, but I sitll do need to pause occasionally to think of the word or conjugate the verbs. It´s getting better really fast - I just wish I had more time to develop my language skills. I am sad because I know I´m going to lose most of the things I have learned here about the language when I get home because I won´t have much practice. I´m still taking classes, but that´s only 4 hours a week and it doens´t involve much verbal communication. I also am going to try to attend conversation hour, which is a weekly thing where you go to a restaurant to practice your Spanish. So maybe I´ll be able to retain a little bit.
Do I have enough clothes?
Suprisingly, I do. I only brought 3 pairs of jeans, some sweatpants/pjs, 5 tshirts, 5 pairs of shorts, 1 pair of exercise tights, 5 sweaters, 3 long sleeve shirts, and 3 pairs of shoes (walking, exercise, cute pair), 5 tank tops. spanish people wear a lot of the same clothes pretty often, so it wouldn´t be that weird if I only wore what I brought with me. However, I have shopped a bit and now have 2 more sweaters, 2 more blouses, a pair of flats and a pair of rainboots, and 2 short-sleeved shirts. I feel that I have a good amount because it will probably fit into my suitcase without a problem on the way home. It´s crazy how little clothing you can live on, and you would NEVER believe it nana!
Are clothes expensive here?
SUPER-EXPENSIVE. Everything is on the euro system, so that makes things automatically more expensive because the conversion rate between euros and dollars is really bad right now. Basically, every time I take out 100 euros, it is equal to taking out 133 dollars. There are a few reasonable chain stores where I have gotten shirts from between 9 euro to 17 euro, so that´s not horrible. Most of the other stores are privately owned and really really expensive. Some of the pricier ones just a few minutes from my house sell 600 euro pairs of jeans! I was lucky to be here during after-holiday sales (all through january and especially in february). But it´s sad because I want to buy all kinds of cool stuff, but i can´t fit too much into my suitcase and it adds up really quickly.
Is the food expensive?
AGAIN, SUPER. The thing is, Navarra (the community in which Pamplona is situated) has the highest cost of living in Spain (but also the highest quality of life). Everything here comes in smaller portions, so it´s sad because you never take food home from restaurants. When we go on big excursions with all the kids in my program, we get many-coursed meals, so I never go hungry, but it´s a different system of restaurants. I don´t buy the food that I eat on a normal basis because my host-mom buys and makes it but she says it´s very expensive to buy good food. And by good, I mean healthy. I also have dining hall food at the university 4days a week for lunch. When I go to the grocery store to buy snack foods and such or to a bakery, it adds up really fast because everything comes in smaller quantities, which can be really frusterating at times when I´m used to big quantities. I´m lucky though - my host mom keeps tons of fruit constantly on the table, so I can always take those things with me.
Have I seen my host sister?
If you haven´t yet, you should read my blog entry about Bilbao because I recently spent the whole weekend with her! Unfortunately, she is home right now, and I only say unfortunately because the reason she is home is because she is really sick. She had to come home from college for the weekend and she had tests done today. They don´t know exactly what is wrong now, but it could be something with her kidney. She is staying home because she has more tests to take on Tuesday at the hospital. They said it´s nothing too serious, but still, it´s such a bummer. She spends a lot of time with her boyfriend, so I don´t see her much, but it´s good to have her back. I just wish she was feeeling better!
Do I go out with the kids from Cleveland?
I do go out with them every once in a while, but I travel a lot on the weekends, so that takes up more of my time. I also tend not to go out with them much because they always go to an Irish bar where they speak English, and I don´t feel like I´m getting any benefit out of speaking english in the same old bar every night. I would rather do other things. I know they have fun, but I would rather travel or spend more time keeping in touch with people at home.
Have I met more spanish kids?
Not many. It´s hard because nobody exactly comes up to us at the university and tries to be our friends. We are kinda the American rejects. I do spend time with the girl ¨intercambio¨ (speaking partner) who I got assigned to talk with though the OU program. We meet once a week to talk, walk around, and learn about each other and our cultures. It´s pretty interesting and I enjoy it. Other than that, no! How sad it is, but like I said, it´s hard. Oh, I forgot! My two friends and I decided to break the Irish bar tradition a few weekends ago and we met some really great kids at a spanish bar. They are from all over Spain and they are studying at the private university (I go to the public university) here in Pamplona. They were so nice and showed us around and it was great! I know if I had more time here, I would have more opportunities to meet people, but it´s ok. I have learned a lot from my family and intercambios.
Hope that answered everything! I love you guys so much and can´t wait to talk to you! I should get some sleep!!
Thanks for having the patience to try to figure out the whole email thing, but don´t worry, I like getting a letter just as much! Also, I can´t believe you took the time to read some of my spanish paper and could understand it... that must have taken some time!
Man, it sounds like you guys are doing A LOT of entertaining... I cannot even imagine having two families in a row like that. How are the Ilbuovich´s (i´m not sure if that´s how you spell it, it was hard to read)?
I´m sorry to hear about the tennis match, but there will be a lot more of those anyway in the future. Just know you could kick my butt any day and maybe then you will feel better. You guys are 6,000 times better than a 19-yr-old... pretty good if I say so myself.
How is the extention of the lanai coming? They better be done by May - that´s ridiculous already! Oh well, I´m sure it will be well worth it when it´s done. It´s just sad cuz I don´t know the next time I´ll be able to visit you guys and see it. I sure hope we take more frequent trips because I had the best time ever during winter break!
The botanical gardens sounds really beautiful. Cleveland´s is pretty cool too, so maybe we should take a trip there over the summer during the weekend. How does that sound? (I guess you can answer all these questions by phone cuz I´ll be home in 10 days! Crazy!)
Now, here´s the time where I can respond to your page of questions. Ready, set, go.
Are you taking any more trips?
Yup, you can read about where I´m going for my last trip this weekend in the blog before this. I´ll probably post information when I get back on Sunday or Monday so you will have the full update then. I¨m really excited! It´s to places that come highly-recommended from Aunt Fran and Sanford, so they should be amazing.
Is the Spanish coming any easier?
It´s coming a lot lot lot easier now. I can make sentences... with a little struggle, but it doesn´t take as much effort now. I can sound more natural, but I sitll do need to pause occasionally to think of the word or conjugate the verbs. It´s getting better really fast - I just wish I had more time to develop my language skills. I am sad because I know I´m going to lose most of the things I have learned here about the language when I get home because I won´t have much practice. I´m still taking classes, but that´s only 4 hours a week and it doens´t involve much verbal communication. I also am going to try to attend conversation hour, which is a weekly thing where you go to a restaurant to practice your Spanish. So maybe I´ll be able to retain a little bit.
Do I have enough clothes?
Suprisingly, I do. I only brought 3 pairs of jeans, some sweatpants/pjs, 5 tshirts, 5 pairs of shorts, 1 pair of exercise tights, 5 sweaters, 3 long sleeve shirts, and 3 pairs of shoes (walking, exercise, cute pair), 5 tank tops. spanish people wear a lot of the same clothes pretty often, so it wouldn´t be that weird if I only wore what I brought with me. However, I have shopped a bit and now have 2 more sweaters, 2 more blouses, a pair of flats and a pair of rainboots, and 2 short-sleeved shirts. I feel that I have a good amount because it will probably fit into my suitcase without a problem on the way home. It´s crazy how little clothing you can live on, and you would NEVER believe it nana!
Are clothes expensive here?
SUPER-EXPENSIVE. Everything is on the euro system, so that makes things automatically more expensive because the conversion rate between euros and dollars is really bad right now. Basically, every time I take out 100 euros, it is equal to taking out 133 dollars. There are a few reasonable chain stores where I have gotten shirts from between 9 euro to 17 euro, so that´s not horrible. Most of the other stores are privately owned and really really expensive. Some of the pricier ones just a few minutes from my house sell 600 euro pairs of jeans! I was lucky to be here during after-holiday sales (all through january and especially in february). But it´s sad because I want to buy all kinds of cool stuff, but i can´t fit too much into my suitcase and it adds up really quickly.
Is the food expensive?
AGAIN, SUPER. The thing is, Navarra (the community in which Pamplona is situated) has the highest cost of living in Spain (but also the highest quality of life). Everything here comes in smaller portions, so it´s sad because you never take food home from restaurants. When we go on big excursions with all the kids in my program, we get many-coursed meals, so I never go hungry, but it´s a different system of restaurants. I don´t buy the food that I eat on a normal basis because my host-mom buys and makes it but she says it´s very expensive to buy good food. And by good, I mean healthy. I also have dining hall food at the university 4days a week for lunch. When I go to the grocery store to buy snack foods and such or to a bakery, it adds up really fast because everything comes in smaller quantities, which can be really frusterating at times when I´m used to big quantities. I´m lucky though - my host mom keeps tons of fruit constantly on the table, so I can always take those things with me.
Have I seen my host sister?
If you haven´t yet, you should read my blog entry about Bilbao because I recently spent the whole weekend with her! Unfortunately, she is home right now, and I only say unfortunately because the reason she is home is because she is really sick. She had to come home from college for the weekend and she had tests done today. They don´t know exactly what is wrong now, but it could be something with her kidney. She is staying home because she has more tests to take on Tuesday at the hospital. They said it´s nothing too serious, but still, it´s such a bummer. She spends a lot of time with her boyfriend, so I don´t see her much, but it´s good to have her back. I just wish she was feeeling better!
Do I go out with the kids from Cleveland?
I do go out with them every once in a while, but I travel a lot on the weekends, so that takes up more of my time. I also tend not to go out with them much because they always go to an Irish bar where they speak English, and I don´t feel like I´m getting any benefit out of speaking english in the same old bar every night. I would rather do other things. I know they have fun, but I would rather travel or spend more time keeping in touch with people at home.
Have I met more spanish kids?
Not many. It´s hard because nobody exactly comes up to us at the university and tries to be our friends. We are kinda the American rejects. I do spend time with the girl ¨intercambio¨ (speaking partner) who I got assigned to talk with though the OU program. We meet once a week to talk, walk around, and learn about each other and our cultures. It´s pretty interesting and I enjoy it. Other than that, no! How sad it is, but like I said, it´s hard. Oh, I forgot! My two friends and I decided to break the Irish bar tradition a few weekends ago and we met some really great kids at a spanish bar. They are from all over Spain and they are studying at the private university (I go to the public university) here in Pamplona. They were so nice and showed us around and it was great! I know if I had more time here, I would have more opportunities to meet people, but it´s ok. I have learned a lot from my family and intercambios.
Hope that answered everything! I love you guys so much and can´t wait to talk to you! I should get some sleep!!
gotta be brief.
so today i did no homework. which would be fine if i wasn´t going all over the east coast of spain for the weekend, returning for a soccer game on sunday night, and my first (and hardest) exam wasn´t tuesday. but i´m more concerned about learning about the real history and culture of spain, not the ¨culture and civilization¨ exam that will be on the text of our book about the same things i´m learning in real life. plus, after visiting the dali museum, i am gonna be able to write a kick-ass essay on dali´s surrealism and the way he doesn´t use logical reason in his paintings (and be able to provide examples)! so there, profesora ana! maybe a little studying on the bus rides too...
i´m out of my ¨get me out of spain¨ phase cuz i realized i have 10 days left and so much to do before i leave! get another gofre at the cafe di roma, get back ot all the pamplona parks and take pictures, master amaia´s music collection, study for 3 exams, find some kind of outfit for our fancy last-night-in-pamplona dinner, and the list goes on.
i will write all about the crazy weekend i´m about to have when i get back. let´s just say i´m taking aunt fran´s idea (and dad´s too... got an email from him also) and going to Girona, an old city with a lot of Jewish history, Figueres, the small city with the Dalí Museum, Roses, a city on la costa brava (the prettiest coast in spain, so i hear... is in the east of cataluña), and staying in Barcelona for a night. soooo that´s about let´s count.... 6 buses. 6 different buses! whew! some of the bus rides are only 30 minutes or so cuz figures and girona and roses are all really close to each other. the long ones are pamplona to barcelona and so on. yay! a good weekend to finish off my study abroad trip! we have our hotels and hostels reserved this time, so yay!
ok, me voy. i´m going! see you all soon :)
i´m out of my ¨get me out of spain¨ phase cuz i realized i have 10 days left and so much to do before i leave! get another gofre at the cafe di roma, get back ot all the pamplona parks and take pictures, master amaia´s music collection, study for 3 exams, find some kind of outfit for our fancy last-night-in-pamplona dinner, and the list goes on.
i will write all about the crazy weekend i´m about to have when i get back. let´s just say i´m taking aunt fran´s idea (and dad´s too... got an email from him also) and going to Girona, an old city with a lot of Jewish history, Figueres, the small city with the Dalí Museum, Roses, a city on la costa brava (the prettiest coast in spain, so i hear... is in the east of cataluña), and staying in Barcelona for a night. soooo that´s about let´s count.... 6 buses. 6 different buses! whew! some of the bus rides are only 30 minutes or so cuz figures and girona and roses are all really close to each other. the long ones are pamplona to barcelona and so on. yay! a good weekend to finish off my study abroad trip! we have our hotels and hostels reserved this time, so yay!
ok, me voy. i´m going! see you all soon :)
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
cho-co-late. malleys. happiness.
yum i love chocolate.
anyways, on to more important matter. today was looking up for me. doctor says my eye is almost better, so i´m going back on the strong meds (you know, the ones they give aids patients, no biggie) to conquer it once and for all. oh i hope it works cuz i´m gonna be feeling real weak for the next few days on two doses of darcortin, a little white pill that makes ya crazy (maybe i´m crazy without it too, but whatever). my bumps are back and better than ever in various places. it´s really fun because they like to form close to one another. i used to have red bump bracelets and those went away and now i have a really cool armband of red bumps around my elbow area. not to mention the really cool ones that decorate my fingers. forget jewelry, just get bitten by spanish bugs, tell your immune system to react poorly, and you will have your very own built-in jewelry collection at your disposal!
anyhow, i got a huge box of chocolates from the fam, a gift for valentines day. i´m celebrating a bit late, but late is better than never when it comes to chocolates. thanks guys! now i have about 3 pounds of chocolate to eat and i look forward to gaining those pounds and then pouting at my stomach each night.
today was a day. i went to school, my classes were pretty interesting, i did some homework, but mostly just procrastinated like always. i´m really good at that... but then again, i guess it´s easy to be good at and everyone else is pretty good at it too.
amaia is home with her bf cuz she´s sick but i´m not spending time with them cuz i´m waiting on mom and sis to come on skype and talk to me. (where are you guys!!?) oh, there you are. mom is finally on. (at 1:20 am for me, how convenient!)
i decided it´s the time to splurge on some kinda really awesome piece of clothing, i just don´t know what it is yet. i´m saving about hundreds of dollars by going to girona and figueres (and not portugal which was originally the plan, but backfired cuz it´s too stressful to plan a trip to another country last minute with finals coming up the week i return) this weekend, so i´m buying a freakin tunic shirt or something to make up for it.
i have 12 days left here, and i´m kinda sad, but not really. ok i´m sad. but really, i´m excited to be back home. i´m kinda hoping everything will just magically be perfect when i´m home. for instance, my built-in jewelry will disappear, the vision in my left eye will suddenly be perfect, my split ends will go away (that might actually happen cuz i have a haircut appointment), i will understand exactly what i want to do with my life, i will lose my bread weight (it has to be bread weight... 2 loaves of white bread a day just isn´t healthy... but it is necessary cuz i´ll soon return to the u.s. and packaged bread forever), and so on and so forth. doubt all that´s gonna happen, but a girl can dream right?
i´m spoiled.
moving on.
i think it´s time for sleepy time cuz mommy isn´t answering the skype call and i need to wake up bright and early so i can do some more lovely homework... reading and translating baby.
dear nana and papa, i got your letter! thanks :) i loved it. i am going to respond by blog because i´m not sure if the whole email thing is working out for you and by the time a letter gets to you, it will be june already (and i´ll be home). so everybody, look forward to a special grandparents blog in the near future where all questions will be answered.
ahhhhh i´m feeling antsy and not ready to go to sleep. must be too much chocolate.
is it weird that this blog has chocolate laced though it all over? i feel like i have a phrase about it between every paragraph, and that´s bordering on obsession maybe. someone, is there a cure to this disease they call chocoholism? do i really have to completely eliminate it from my diet, or is that just for alcoholism? i sure hope the two scenarios are different because i know i could live without alcohol, but i´m not quite sure if i could live without chocolate. not that i have a problem with alcohol, if that´s what it sounded like. cuz i don´t.
ok, this blog is pointless and really needs to end now. goodbye my loves.
(p.s. dad and nicole - that reminds me of the song ¨bye, bye love¨ and how we used to dance around the family room table to all our good music.) p.s. mom i can´t wait for aerobics. p.s. everyone else - in the sills family, two things are pretty important (among others)... that would have to be music and exercise.
anyways, on to more important matter. today was looking up for me. doctor says my eye is almost better, so i´m going back on the strong meds (you know, the ones they give aids patients, no biggie) to conquer it once and for all. oh i hope it works cuz i´m gonna be feeling real weak for the next few days on two doses of darcortin, a little white pill that makes ya crazy (maybe i´m crazy without it too, but whatever). my bumps are back and better than ever in various places. it´s really fun because they like to form close to one another. i used to have red bump bracelets and those went away and now i have a really cool armband of red bumps around my elbow area. not to mention the really cool ones that decorate my fingers. forget jewelry, just get bitten by spanish bugs, tell your immune system to react poorly, and you will have your very own built-in jewelry collection at your disposal!
anyhow, i got a huge box of chocolates from the fam, a gift for valentines day. i´m celebrating a bit late, but late is better than never when it comes to chocolates. thanks guys! now i have about 3 pounds of chocolate to eat and i look forward to gaining those pounds and then pouting at my stomach each night.
today was a day. i went to school, my classes were pretty interesting, i did some homework, but mostly just procrastinated like always. i´m really good at that... but then again, i guess it´s easy to be good at and everyone else is pretty good at it too.
amaia is home with her bf cuz she´s sick but i´m not spending time with them cuz i´m waiting on mom and sis to come on skype and talk to me. (where are you guys!!?) oh, there you are. mom is finally on. (at 1:20 am for me, how convenient!)
i decided it´s the time to splurge on some kinda really awesome piece of clothing, i just don´t know what it is yet. i´m saving about hundreds of dollars by going to girona and figueres (and not portugal which was originally the plan, but backfired cuz it´s too stressful to plan a trip to another country last minute with finals coming up the week i return) this weekend, so i´m buying a freakin tunic shirt or something to make up for it.
i have 12 days left here, and i´m kinda sad, but not really. ok i´m sad. but really, i´m excited to be back home. i´m kinda hoping everything will just magically be perfect when i´m home. for instance, my built-in jewelry will disappear, the vision in my left eye will suddenly be perfect, my split ends will go away (that might actually happen cuz i have a haircut appointment), i will understand exactly what i want to do with my life, i will lose my bread weight (it has to be bread weight... 2 loaves of white bread a day just isn´t healthy... but it is necessary cuz i´ll soon return to the u.s. and packaged bread forever), and so on and so forth. doubt all that´s gonna happen, but a girl can dream right?
i´m spoiled.
moving on.
i think it´s time for sleepy time cuz mommy isn´t answering the skype call and i need to wake up bright and early so i can do some more lovely homework... reading and translating baby.
dear nana and papa, i got your letter! thanks :) i loved it. i am going to respond by blog because i´m not sure if the whole email thing is working out for you and by the time a letter gets to you, it will be june already (and i´ll be home). so everybody, look forward to a special grandparents blog in the near future where all questions will be answered.
ahhhhh i´m feeling antsy and not ready to go to sleep. must be too much chocolate.
is it weird that this blog has chocolate laced though it all over? i feel like i have a phrase about it between every paragraph, and that´s bordering on obsession maybe. someone, is there a cure to this disease they call chocoholism? do i really have to completely eliminate it from my diet, or is that just for alcoholism? i sure hope the two scenarios are different because i know i could live without alcohol, but i´m not quite sure if i could live without chocolate. not that i have a problem with alcohol, if that´s what it sounded like. cuz i don´t.
ok, this blog is pointless and really needs to end now. goodbye my loves.
(p.s. dad and nicole - that reminds me of the song ¨bye, bye love¨ and how we used to dance around the family room table to all our good music.) p.s. mom i can´t wait for aerobics. p.s. everyone else - in the sills family, two things are pretty important (among others)... that would have to be music and exercise.
Sunday, March 4, 2007
to approach closure and master bilbao.
I haven´t written a real blog in a long time, and it´s because I have been overwhelmed, and generally unhappy. Ok, so let´s back up a little. I wouldn´t exactly go to the point of saying I´m unhappy. There are moments, yes, but they call for a bit more description so you don´t get the wrong idea.
I have entered my next stage of the culture shock, and I have thought about it a lot in the past week. Here is my conclusion. I call it ¨I am ready to return home¨ phase. Let´s list the reasons.
I have gotten to the point where I feel that I have learned the amount I´m going to be able to learn in this short period of time. My Spanish skills are not going to drastically take a turn for the better now - what I have learned, and the speed and precision with which I am speaking will probably remain the same in these last two weeks.
As far as life in general, I have learned what I have learned, and I feel that is enough. I know myself a lot better - I know what I can and cannot do - I know how independent and how dependent I am - I know that I can live in another country with people who I don´t know to begin with - I have a perspective of the world, life, culture, people, everything, that has expanded infinitely. But one thing I know for sure at the end of this experience is that I would rather be with/near the people I love than in any place without them. I was at the Guggenheim Museum this weekend and there was a quote on the wall that really had an impression on me. I just searched for about a half hour online for it cuz it was just that good, but it´s going to be impossible to find. It was by an artist named Jesús Mari Lazkano and it said something along the lines of this (much more eloquently, of course): life is not about the place in which you live. it is the people that make the city, not the city that makes the people. basically, you could be anywhere and it wouldn´t matter if you weren´t with the people you cared about.
maybe dave matthews sums it up best, ¨Turns out not where but who you're with that really matters.¨ That´s easier. is that accurate, all you dave matthews fans? cuz i have a feeling it´s not. so correct me if it´s wrong.
Anyway, that´s how I feel. I am ready to come home because, above all else, I just miss my real life and the real people in it and the things that give it purpose.
This weekend was good for me. I had to speak spanish the entire weekend and it was really cool cuz i was with my three favorite spanish people - amaia, ikur, and beatriz. it was really hard at times because at times, i understood what they were saying to each other, but i couldn´t think fast enough to say anything to contribute to the conversation or because i couldn´t find the words that would make sense. other times, i wouldn´t understand, and i felt stupid interrupting, even though they told me to do so. other times, i got tired of trying so hard and i just zoned out and then someone would ask me a question and i would be clueless. it was definitely a mental challenge. but i thought about it at the end of the weekend and i realized something. i survived an entire weekend with three spaniards, who were strangers to me 2 months ago, speaking no english! i got what was going on, enjoyed myself, and was just so immersed in this totally different life. it was crazy that i did this. i was at the apartment of some spanish girl, (amaia, who obviously i know now), living for a few days with all people who don´t speak my language, and just acting like it was completely normal! and i´m just shocked about it. i dont´think ever again in my life will i be sitting at a dinner table, drinking beer and eating cake (eew, i know), with candles lit and some crazy french music, just listening to an intense conversation in another language, and understanding it, and knowing that this is my life and this is real. that will never ever happen again. and as much as i´m excited to come home, i´m sad that this is the end of this chapter. cuz i feel like it´s this huge acheivement to be able to understand life in another language and another culture and make friends with people who grew up in a different country than me.
me and bea(triz) bonded over music for 4 hours on the bus rides to and from bilbao, and it was crazy to me! cuz how similar can two totally opposite girls be? we grew up in two completely different lifestyles and yet we are still jamming to the libertines and the arctic monkeys and the strokes together. it´s crazy. how do these things even happen?
maybe all this stuff is just cooler for me and when i write about it, it doesn´t make sense. i don´t know. i just wanna get it out there because one day, i want to look back at this and know exactly what i was thinking and feeling and why i did this and why i´m going to make the decisions i do in the future.
i don´t think i can ever live in another country again. i just don´t. i love spain, but i don´t think i love spain enough to live here.
bilbao was really really cool. it´s the perfect perfect college town. we went on walks around the city at night, it´s gorgeous, it´s everything you would expect from a city that has beach and mountains and a big huge college and the Guggenheim Museum. the museum was pretty cool - mostly the architecture from the outside... i´ll add pics later, but other than the lazkano quote, the inside didn´t really have anything exciting - it´s between exhibitions. we took a funicular (not sure how to say it in english) up the mountain and got the view of the city. incredible.
the nightlife was completely unforgettable. spanish kids know how to do it, especially in bilbao. there are hundreds of people in the streets, and because drinking in the streets is legal, you see all these people carrying around coke bottles. the pop, not the drug. including us. but what they do is mix wine with coke. and suprisingly, it´s incredible. i will spread it all over athens (when i turn 21 of course. another thing that´s gonna be weird moving back home - having drinking be illegal. it´s just such a part of the culture here that i have learned to be comfortable with it.) so the weather this weekend was mid to upper 60 (ahh!!!!!!!!! it´s like spring!!) and we sat on a bench and watched people and i got to observe a bit of the fashion.
it´s interesting. bilbao provided me with my first glimpse of spanish girls that are dressed slutty. it was interesting, i guess only pamplona doesn´t have slutty-dressed girls. i also saw my very first chico guapisimo (who didn´t have a mullet and didn´t smell like rotten eggs... or so i think because i never got close enough to him to smell anything) so, for all you wanting to know the european-cool fashions, here´s my take on it. tunic shirts are huge (and i´m sure they are in the states too) but, baggy ones, with tights and boots. knee high boots are key here. i think every girl owns a pair, whether they be heeled or not. and they are almost all pointy toe. it is allowed to wear canadian tuxedos here (you know, jean jackets with jeans. blah. gag.) the girls also do this really cool thing where you wear bermuda shorts with some kind of patterned tights underneath and flats. it´s pretty cool. all the bilbao boys wear zip-up hoodies (or so it seemed) to go out. and not even a single one was wearing a button-down shirt or a polo.
so the bars are huge and packed and the music is perfectly dancable, and not rap. one of them was converted from a theater to a bar, so it was amazingly cool with different floors and balconies and the stage and huge paper lights hanging from the ceiling. and they don´t sleep. we didn´t leave the house until 1:30 a.m and we didn´t even leave the bars until 5 a.m. i am not used to this insane schedule. i feel like a grandma.
we did a lot of sleeping in today and watched a movie called 24 hour party people that i couldn´tunderstand for the life of me and didn´t have the esfuerzo (hm don´t know the english word! motivation maybe?) to keep my eyes open. all in all, it was a fun weekend.
and now, it´s bed time.
so that´s my blabbering for the week, hope you enjoyed.
i feel like i´m taking crazy pills. (will ferrell quote, i´m not really.) speaking of, i want to watch zoolander the minute i get back to the u.s. ok, maybe that week.
I have entered my next stage of the culture shock, and I have thought about it a lot in the past week. Here is my conclusion. I call it ¨I am ready to return home¨ phase. Let´s list the reasons.
I have gotten to the point where I feel that I have learned the amount I´m going to be able to learn in this short period of time. My Spanish skills are not going to drastically take a turn for the better now - what I have learned, and the speed and precision with which I am speaking will probably remain the same in these last two weeks.
As far as life in general, I have learned what I have learned, and I feel that is enough. I know myself a lot better - I know what I can and cannot do - I know how independent and how dependent I am - I know that I can live in another country with people who I don´t know to begin with - I have a perspective of the world, life, culture, people, everything, that has expanded infinitely. But one thing I know for sure at the end of this experience is that I would rather be with/near the people I love than in any place without them. I was at the Guggenheim Museum this weekend and there was a quote on the wall that really had an impression on me. I just searched for about a half hour online for it cuz it was just that good, but it´s going to be impossible to find. It was by an artist named Jesús Mari Lazkano and it said something along the lines of this (much more eloquently, of course): life is not about the place in which you live. it is the people that make the city, not the city that makes the people. basically, you could be anywhere and it wouldn´t matter if you weren´t with the people you cared about.
maybe dave matthews sums it up best, ¨Turns out not where but who you're with that really matters.¨ That´s easier. is that accurate, all you dave matthews fans? cuz i have a feeling it´s not. so correct me if it´s wrong.
Anyway, that´s how I feel. I am ready to come home because, above all else, I just miss my real life and the real people in it and the things that give it purpose.
This weekend was good for me. I had to speak spanish the entire weekend and it was really cool cuz i was with my three favorite spanish people - amaia, ikur, and beatriz. it was really hard at times because at times, i understood what they were saying to each other, but i couldn´t think fast enough to say anything to contribute to the conversation or because i couldn´t find the words that would make sense. other times, i wouldn´t understand, and i felt stupid interrupting, even though they told me to do so. other times, i got tired of trying so hard and i just zoned out and then someone would ask me a question and i would be clueless. it was definitely a mental challenge. but i thought about it at the end of the weekend and i realized something. i survived an entire weekend with three spaniards, who were strangers to me 2 months ago, speaking no english! i got what was going on, enjoyed myself, and was just so immersed in this totally different life. it was crazy that i did this. i was at the apartment of some spanish girl, (amaia, who obviously i know now), living for a few days with all people who don´t speak my language, and just acting like it was completely normal! and i´m just shocked about it. i dont´think ever again in my life will i be sitting at a dinner table, drinking beer and eating cake (eew, i know), with candles lit and some crazy french music, just listening to an intense conversation in another language, and understanding it, and knowing that this is my life and this is real. that will never ever happen again. and as much as i´m excited to come home, i´m sad that this is the end of this chapter. cuz i feel like it´s this huge acheivement to be able to understand life in another language and another culture and make friends with people who grew up in a different country than me.
me and bea(triz) bonded over music for 4 hours on the bus rides to and from bilbao, and it was crazy to me! cuz how similar can two totally opposite girls be? we grew up in two completely different lifestyles and yet we are still jamming to the libertines and the arctic monkeys and the strokes together. it´s crazy. how do these things even happen?
maybe all this stuff is just cooler for me and when i write about it, it doesn´t make sense. i don´t know. i just wanna get it out there because one day, i want to look back at this and know exactly what i was thinking and feeling and why i did this and why i´m going to make the decisions i do in the future.
i don´t think i can ever live in another country again. i just don´t. i love spain, but i don´t think i love spain enough to live here.
bilbao was really really cool. it´s the perfect perfect college town. we went on walks around the city at night, it´s gorgeous, it´s everything you would expect from a city that has beach and mountains and a big huge college and the Guggenheim Museum. the museum was pretty cool - mostly the architecture from the outside... i´ll add pics later, but other than the lazkano quote, the inside didn´t really have anything exciting - it´s between exhibitions. we took a funicular (not sure how to say it in english) up the mountain and got the view of the city. incredible.
the nightlife was completely unforgettable. spanish kids know how to do it, especially in bilbao. there are hundreds of people in the streets, and because drinking in the streets is legal, you see all these people carrying around coke bottles. the pop, not the drug. including us. but what they do is mix wine with coke. and suprisingly, it´s incredible. i will spread it all over athens (when i turn 21 of course. another thing that´s gonna be weird moving back home - having drinking be illegal. it´s just such a part of the culture here that i have learned to be comfortable with it.) so the weather this weekend was mid to upper 60 (ahh!!!!!!!!! it´s like spring!!) and we sat on a bench and watched people and i got to observe a bit of the fashion.
it´s interesting. bilbao provided me with my first glimpse of spanish girls that are dressed slutty. it was interesting, i guess only pamplona doesn´t have slutty-dressed girls. i also saw my very first chico guapisimo (who didn´t have a mullet and didn´t smell like rotten eggs... or so i think because i never got close enough to him to smell anything) so, for all you wanting to know the european-cool fashions, here´s my take on it. tunic shirts are huge (and i´m sure they are in the states too) but, baggy ones, with tights and boots. knee high boots are key here. i think every girl owns a pair, whether they be heeled or not. and they are almost all pointy toe. it is allowed to wear canadian tuxedos here (you know, jean jackets with jeans. blah. gag.) the girls also do this really cool thing where you wear bermuda shorts with some kind of patterned tights underneath and flats. it´s pretty cool. all the bilbao boys wear zip-up hoodies (or so it seemed) to go out. and not even a single one was wearing a button-down shirt or a polo.
so the bars are huge and packed and the music is perfectly dancable, and not rap. one of them was converted from a theater to a bar, so it was amazingly cool with different floors and balconies and the stage and huge paper lights hanging from the ceiling. and they don´t sleep. we didn´t leave the house until 1:30 a.m and we didn´t even leave the bars until 5 a.m. i am not used to this insane schedule. i feel like a grandma.
we did a lot of sleeping in today and watched a movie called 24 hour party people that i couldn´tunderstand for the life of me and didn´t have the esfuerzo (hm don´t know the english word! motivation maybe?) to keep my eyes open. all in all, it was a fun weekend.
and now, it´s bed time.
so that´s my blabbering for the week, hope you enjoyed.
i feel like i´m taking crazy pills. (will ferrell quote, i´m not really.) speaking of, i want to watch zoolander the minute i get back to the u.s. ok, maybe that week.
Monday, February 26, 2007
more pictures.
i see the light - in Sos.
the courtyard where the kiddies in Sos play
a night of spanish bars
Here´s some spanish that i typed up for class for all you spanish speakers.
Mis diarios
14/1/07
Vivir con una familia española
Vivir con una familia aquí es mi parte favorita de toda esta experiencia. Aunque había mucho de mi familia española en mi primero entrada, hay más hablar. Cuando estoy con mi familia española es necesario que use español para comunicarme. Al contrario, con mis compañeros del programa, es más difícil hablar español porque todos los compañeros saben inglés. No solo mis destrezas en la conversación están mejorando, pero estoy aprendiendo mucho sobre la cultura en España. Cada día, veo cómo una familia española vive. Veo cómo come, relaje y hace cosas en general. Afortunadamente, mi familia ha cambiado unas cosas para ayudarme. Por ejemplo, hablan más lentamente, mi madre cocina comida que me gusta (aunque le he dicho que me gustaría probar toda la comida típica) y se asegura del apoyo que tengo cómodo. Agredido todo su ayuda mucho porque sin la, estaría perdida en esta país.
17/1/07
La juventud española y sus costumbres
El sábado pasado fue mi noche favorita de todas – tuve suerte de ver un ejemplo real de las costumbres y los hábitos de los jóvenes en Pamplona. Mi hermana española (Amaia) me invitó a cenar y a salir con ella, su prima y su amiga Beatriz. ¡Nos divertimos mucho! Para mi, fue muy guay (guay es una palabra que Amaia me enseñó) pasar tiempo con estas chicas. Me mostraron los bares que le gustan la más y me dijeron sobre las calles que debo evitar. Una calle mal es Jarauta – quizás debemos discutirla en clase. Aprendí muchas otras cosas esta noche porque las chicas eran corteses y repitieron frases e ideas que no entendía. También bailamos juntos y me gustó porque bailar es universal; no se necesita saber la lengua de una canción bailar. Estaba divertido porque los bares ponen música inglés y española. Por lo tanto, pude explicar unas canciones a Amaia y ella me explicó otras. Aunque la mitad de la noche pasó bien, había una situación que me tuvo miedo. Cuando andábamos por las calles, escuchamos un cañonazo. Amaia me explicó que era un disturbio por las terroristas en Pamplona (supongo ETA, pero no estoy segura). Me dijeron correr con ellas porque no eran seguras.
19/1/07
La televisión en España
Estoy sorprendida que los programas de televisión en España son muy similares a los de los Estados Unidos. Hay muchos programas que tenemos en los Estados Unidos que tienen aquí con traducciones. Amaia mira mucho ¨Sexo en la ciudad,¨ un programa muy popular en los Estados Unidos. También, muchas películas están traducidas del inglés al español. Otra sorpresa que encontré es que entiendo mucho más televisión en español aquí que hice cuando probaba mirarla antes de mi viaje. No es tan fácil entender como mis profesoras aquí, pero es más fácil entender que las personas en las calles o mi familia. Mi familia aquí mira mucha televisión pasar el tiempo. Por ejemplo, mi familia en Ohio mira un programa que se llama ¨American Idol¨ y también mira ¨Dancing With the Stars.¨ Aunque no he visto estos programas aquí, hay programas muy similar que mi madre española le gusta mucho. Ojalá que tenga mucho tiempo mirar la televisión para aprender más, pero mucho del tiempo que estoy en mi casa, hago tarea. ¡Hay muchas cosas hacer!
7/2/07
La comida
Mi intercambio y yo fuimos a varios bares a comer pinchos el otro día. ¡Fue una experiencia muy diferente para mí! Nunca he comido poca comida en muchos bares antes de cenar. Esta tradición es interesente – en España, hay mucha gente que suele seguir esta tradición. Vi mucha gente en las calles y los bares estaban muy llenos. Es algo que no pasa en los Estados Unidos. Pienso que es una de muchas partes de la cultura española que no ya entiendo. Porque la gente come pinchos a las ocho o a las nueve, cena luego y sale otra vez (mucho más tarde) durante la noche. En los Estados Unidos, porque los bares cierran muy temprano, necesitamos cenar más temprano y salir de la casa más temprano. Si salimos luego, no tendremos mucho tiempo para divertirnos. Es normal volver a la casa (o en mi caso, a la residencia de estudiantes) a las dos de la mañana y dormir cuando llego a mi residencia. Me divertí comiendo los pincho – fueron deliciosos. Mi intercambio pidió pimientos, bacalao y berenjena con setas. Sin embargo, los pimientos fueron muy ricos. Fernando (mi intercambio) me dijo que los pimientos son pinchos muy comunes y populares. Ahora, sé por qué. Otra vez, fui con mi hermana Amaia y su amiga Beatriz tomar algo a un bar que se llama Bar Aldapa. Me gusta el bar mucho porque la decoración es muy moderna e interesante. Fuimos antes de cenar también – una tradición que necesito acostumbrarme.
16/2/07
La moda y los estilos
Me la daba cuenta que los estilos de vestir in España son tan formales. Parece que es muy raro ir a la escuela en la ropa que muchos estudiantes llevan en los Estados Unidos – sudaderas y pantalones cómodos. Cada día, los estudiantes universitarios llevan suéteres y zapatos formales (como botas para las chicas) en vez de zapatos de deportes. En los Estados Unidos es muy popular llevar ropa casual y si llevas ropa formal, mucha gente te pregunta, ¨¿Por qué estás llevando tú ropa tan elegante?¨
Aquí, también no veo muchas chicas que se visten para parecer ¨sexy.¨ La ropa es más de una manera de expresión de personalidad que una forma atraer atención del otro sexo o demostrar el cuerpo. Tal vez, solo he visto la moda en Pamplona y puede ser diferente en otras partes de España. En Granada, por ejemplo, vi mucha más variedad y modas diferentes, pero es posible que la razón sea la cantidad de turistas es más grande en Granada a este tiempo del año.
17/2/07
Las cosas que puede comprar
En España, todas las cantidades de comida son más pequeñas que las que se compran en los Estados Unidos. Es un poco frustrante porque siempre pago más por una comida aquí y necesito comprar cosas más a menudo.
También, tengo un problema. Me encantan los dulces, pero es muy raro encontrar las cosas que me gustan en España. Los españoles prefieren postres con menos azúcar (tartas con menos sabor que los pasteles que como normalmente y con una formar diferente de cocinar) y muchas veces, ansío una galleta flexible o un pastel de chocolate (brownie en inglés – ¡No hay una traducción porque no existen aquí!) Es una pena. Como mucho chocolate porque no hay otras sustituciones tan dulces y echo de menos dulces de los Estados Unidos.
i see the light - in Sos.
the courtyard where the kiddies in Sos play
a night of spanish bars
Here´s some spanish that i typed up for class for all you spanish speakers.
Mis diarios
14/1/07
Vivir con una familia española
Vivir con una familia aquí es mi parte favorita de toda esta experiencia. Aunque había mucho de mi familia española en mi primero entrada, hay más hablar. Cuando estoy con mi familia española es necesario que use español para comunicarme. Al contrario, con mis compañeros del programa, es más difícil hablar español porque todos los compañeros saben inglés. No solo mis destrezas en la conversación están mejorando, pero estoy aprendiendo mucho sobre la cultura en España. Cada día, veo cómo una familia española vive. Veo cómo come, relaje y hace cosas en general. Afortunadamente, mi familia ha cambiado unas cosas para ayudarme. Por ejemplo, hablan más lentamente, mi madre cocina comida que me gusta (aunque le he dicho que me gustaría probar toda la comida típica) y se asegura del apoyo que tengo cómodo. Agredido todo su ayuda mucho porque sin la, estaría perdida en esta país.
17/1/07
La juventud española y sus costumbres
El sábado pasado fue mi noche favorita de todas – tuve suerte de ver un ejemplo real de las costumbres y los hábitos de los jóvenes en Pamplona. Mi hermana española (Amaia) me invitó a cenar y a salir con ella, su prima y su amiga Beatriz. ¡Nos divertimos mucho! Para mi, fue muy guay (guay es una palabra que Amaia me enseñó) pasar tiempo con estas chicas. Me mostraron los bares que le gustan la más y me dijeron sobre las calles que debo evitar. Una calle mal es Jarauta – quizás debemos discutirla en clase. Aprendí muchas otras cosas esta noche porque las chicas eran corteses y repitieron frases e ideas que no entendía. También bailamos juntos y me gustó porque bailar es universal; no se necesita saber la lengua de una canción bailar. Estaba divertido porque los bares ponen música inglés y española. Por lo tanto, pude explicar unas canciones a Amaia y ella me explicó otras. Aunque la mitad de la noche pasó bien, había una situación que me tuvo miedo. Cuando andábamos por las calles, escuchamos un cañonazo. Amaia me explicó que era un disturbio por las terroristas en Pamplona (supongo ETA, pero no estoy segura). Me dijeron correr con ellas porque no eran seguras.
19/1/07
La televisión en España
Estoy sorprendida que los programas de televisión en España son muy similares a los de los Estados Unidos. Hay muchos programas que tenemos en los Estados Unidos que tienen aquí con traducciones. Amaia mira mucho ¨Sexo en la ciudad,¨ un programa muy popular en los Estados Unidos. También, muchas películas están traducidas del inglés al español. Otra sorpresa que encontré es que entiendo mucho más televisión en español aquí que hice cuando probaba mirarla antes de mi viaje. No es tan fácil entender como mis profesoras aquí, pero es más fácil entender que las personas en las calles o mi familia. Mi familia aquí mira mucha televisión pasar el tiempo. Por ejemplo, mi familia en Ohio mira un programa que se llama ¨American Idol¨ y también mira ¨Dancing With the Stars.¨ Aunque no he visto estos programas aquí, hay programas muy similar que mi madre española le gusta mucho. Ojalá que tenga mucho tiempo mirar la televisión para aprender más, pero mucho del tiempo que estoy en mi casa, hago tarea. ¡Hay muchas cosas hacer!
7/2/07
La comida
Mi intercambio y yo fuimos a varios bares a comer pinchos el otro día. ¡Fue una experiencia muy diferente para mí! Nunca he comido poca comida en muchos bares antes de cenar. Esta tradición es interesente – en España, hay mucha gente que suele seguir esta tradición. Vi mucha gente en las calles y los bares estaban muy llenos. Es algo que no pasa en los Estados Unidos. Pienso que es una de muchas partes de la cultura española que no ya entiendo. Porque la gente come pinchos a las ocho o a las nueve, cena luego y sale otra vez (mucho más tarde) durante la noche. En los Estados Unidos, porque los bares cierran muy temprano, necesitamos cenar más temprano y salir de la casa más temprano. Si salimos luego, no tendremos mucho tiempo para divertirnos. Es normal volver a la casa (o en mi caso, a la residencia de estudiantes) a las dos de la mañana y dormir cuando llego a mi residencia. Me divertí comiendo los pincho – fueron deliciosos. Mi intercambio pidió pimientos, bacalao y berenjena con setas. Sin embargo, los pimientos fueron muy ricos. Fernando (mi intercambio) me dijo que los pimientos son pinchos muy comunes y populares. Ahora, sé por qué. Otra vez, fui con mi hermana Amaia y su amiga Beatriz tomar algo a un bar que se llama Bar Aldapa. Me gusta el bar mucho porque la decoración es muy moderna e interesante. Fuimos antes de cenar también – una tradición que necesito acostumbrarme.
16/2/07
La moda y los estilos
Me la daba cuenta que los estilos de vestir in España son tan formales. Parece que es muy raro ir a la escuela en la ropa que muchos estudiantes llevan en los Estados Unidos – sudaderas y pantalones cómodos. Cada día, los estudiantes universitarios llevan suéteres y zapatos formales (como botas para las chicas) en vez de zapatos de deportes. En los Estados Unidos es muy popular llevar ropa casual y si llevas ropa formal, mucha gente te pregunta, ¨¿Por qué estás llevando tú ropa tan elegante?¨
Aquí, también no veo muchas chicas que se visten para parecer ¨sexy.¨ La ropa es más de una manera de expresión de personalidad que una forma atraer atención del otro sexo o demostrar el cuerpo. Tal vez, solo he visto la moda en Pamplona y puede ser diferente en otras partes de España. En Granada, por ejemplo, vi mucha más variedad y modas diferentes, pero es posible que la razón sea la cantidad de turistas es más grande en Granada a este tiempo del año.
17/2/07
Las cosas que puede comprar
En España, todas las cantidades de comida son más pequeñas que las que se compran en los Estados Unidos. Es un poco frustrante porque siempre pago más por una comida aquí y necesito comprar cosas más a menudo.
También, tengo un problema. Me encantan los dulces, pero es muy raro encontrar las cosas que me gustan en España. Los españoles prefieren postres con menos azúcar (tartas con menos sabor que los pasteles que como normalmente y con una formar diferente de cocinar) y muchas veces, ansío una galleta flexible o un pastel de chocolate (brownie en inglés – ¡No hay una traducción porque no existen aquí!) Es una pena. Como mucho chocolate porque no hay otras sustituciones tan dulces y echo de menos dulces de los Estados Unidos.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
varias cosas.
ok get ready for many types of random. ready, set, go.
i read this spanish article about kids somewhere in asia who are going through treatment for addiction to the internet. it works because it gives them electric shocks and they know it will physically hurt to go online. i need this treatment immediately. i have looked at two full screens of people´s pictures on facebook... probably like 40 albums in the past two days, maybe more. it is this constant need to feel connected to the world i left behind i guess. i need some shock therapy for this.
spanish people created the best things ever and i didn´t even realize it until now. they are something in between a cookie and a cracker. they are crackers, with just a little bit of sweet. i bought about 200 cookies for one euro yesterday and i am in heaven because i finally have something other than chocolate to snack on (and believe me, even i do not feel right about snacking on chocolate). they are healthy - semi-healthy - and i am happy. i also bought honey-nut cornflakes. yay!
i miss my sarcasm. i cannot even be sarcastic in spanish because something wouldn´t translate correctly and i´d just be talking like a fool or a mean person, neither of which would be suitable for everday life. plus, i don´t get the jokes that people make in spanish. they are above my head. oh, how i miss dad´s stupid jokes (i love them dad!) and laughing about stupid things with nood in the room when we are delirious from too much work. (and laughing with anyone in general i guess.) it´s not like i don´t laugh. it´s like i don´t laugh as much.
i ate lunch with amaia today and it was grand. she told me she is going to take me to an american restaurant where we can eat REAL BROWNIES. ahhhhhhhhhhh!
i went running today and it was like discovering a parallel universe. (geez, this is weird. i just realized that in two consecutive blogs i have talked about aliens and parallel universes... where is all this sci-fi stuff coming from?) i descended this huge hill. (can you say descended without saying down after?) and then all of a sudden there was the river! how could i have not discovered this section of pamplona before? it´s like a hidden part. there were a gazillion people going for walks with their family etc, and it was supercool. bridges, little tents of veggie growing, a park with softball fields, etc, people canoing in the river, winding paths. so much new stuff for discovering!
it´s only too bad that the hill i had to run back up on my way home was like morton hill (the same steepness/grade) but 7 times as long. that was fun. i almost followed these three guys that were running down another street after we went up the big hill, but i decided i would remember where it was and go back another day. it looked pretty sweet.
i can´t get myself together right now. no motivation for the whole homework thing. although i do have a large amount of energy right now, i can´t seem to target where to put it.
oh sundays. sundays in spain are bumdays. everything is closed. and i mean everything. ok, not everything. but most things. i´m kinda irritated that my sentences are 3 words long right now, but i´m not going to fix that because i´m lazy.
I read a short story by Borges, a supposedly very famous and important spanish surrealist writer. i can´t really get the jist of it. (jist? is that word and did i spell it right? is it gist?) this man is poor because he bought a very secluded plot of farming land. and he reads Mil y Una Noches (1001 nights - i´m thinking that´s the whole thing that aladdin, etc came from) and has horrible nightmares about it and realizes that his life has nothing to offer him. so he goes to a doctor, becomes very sick, and eventually recuperates. he is traveling back to his farm and stops at a grocery store to eat. at this grocery store there is another group of three poor farmers and a old guy dressed like a gaucho (olden days in the south of spain). the three poor farmers start a fight with him and he doesn´t have a weapon to fight back. all of a sudden, the old gaucho guy gives him a dagger. so he has this dagger to fight and then... i believe... the three guys just leave. and the man thinks that he would have preferred to die in this situation, above any others - in the situation of a fight these three men. then he starts walking home with the dagger in hand.
what does that even mean? surrealism. i don´t get it.
I believe it is time to answer some of the questions i am supposed to prepare about the Borges story now. Ok.
hasta luego.
i read this spanish article about kids somewhere in asia who are going through treatment for addiction to the internet. it works because it gives them electric shocks and they know it will physically hurt to go online. i need this treatment immediately. i have looked at two full screens of people´s pictures on facebook... probably like 40 albums in the past two days, maybe more. it is this constant need to feel connected to the world i left behind i guess. i need some shock therapy for this.
spanish people created the best things ever and i didn´t even realize it until now. they are something in between a cookie and a cracker. they are crackers, with just a little bit of sweet. i bought about 200 cookies for one euro yesterday and i am in heaven because i finally have something other than chocolate to snack on (and believe me, even i do not feel right about snacking on chocolate). they are healthy - semi-healthy - and i am happy. i also bought honey-nut cornflakes. yay!
i miss my sarcasm. i cannot even be sarcastic in spanish because something wouldn´t translate correctly and i´d just be talking like a fool or a mean person, neither of which would be suitable for everday life. plus, i don´t get the jokes that people make in spanish. they are above my head. oh, how i miss dad´s stupid jokes (i love them dad!) and laughing about stupid things with nood in the room when we are delirious from too much work. (and laughing with anyone in general i guess.) it´s not like i don´t laugh. it´s like i don´t laugh as much.
i ate lunch with amaia today and it was grand. she told me she is going to take me to an american restaurant where we can eat REAL BROWNIES. ahhhhhhhhhhh!
i went running today and it was like discovering a parallel universe. (geez, this is weird. i just realized that in two consecutive blogs i have talked about aliens and parallel universes... where is all this sci-fi stuff coming from?) i descended this huge hill. (can you say descended without saying down after?) and then all of a sudden there was the river! how could i have not discovered this section of pamplona before? it´s like a hidden part. there were a gazillion people going for walks with their family etc, and it was supercool. bridges, little tents of veggie growing, a park with softball fields, etc, people canoing in the river, winding paths. so much new stuff for discovering!
it´s only too bad that the hill i had to run back up on my way home was like morton hill (the same steepness/grade) but 7 times as long. that was fun. i almost followed these three guys that were running down another street after we went up the big hill, but i decided i would remember where it was and go back another day. it looked pretty sweet.
i can´t get myself together right now. no motivation for the whole homework thing. although i do have a large amount of energy right now, i can´t seem to target where to put it.
oh sundays. sundays in spain are bumdays. everything is closed. and i mean everything. ok, not everything. but most things. i´m kinda irritated that my sentences are 3 words long right now, but i´m not going to fix that because i´m lazy.
I read a short story by Borges, a supposedly very famous and important spanish surrealist writer. i can´t really get the jist of it. (jist? is that word and did i spell it right? is it gist?) this man is poor because he bought a very secluded plot of farming land. and he reads Mil y Una Noches (1001 nights - i´m thinking that´s the whole thing that aladdin, etc came from) and has horrible nightmares about it and realizes that his life has nothing to offer him. so he goes to a doctor, becomes very sick, and eventually recuperates. he is traveling back to his farm and stops at a grocery store to eat. at this grocery store there is another group of three poor farmers and a old guy dressed like a gaucho (olden days in the south of spain). the three poor farmers start a fight with him and he doesn´t have a weapon to fight back. all of a sudden, the old gaucho guy gives him a dagger. so he has this dagger to fight and then... i believe... the three guys just leave. and the man thinks that he would have preferred to die in this situation, above any others - in the situation of a fight these three men. then he starts walking home with the dagger in hand.
what does that even mean? surrealism. i don´t get it.
I believe it is time to answer some of the questions i am supposed to prepare about the Borges story now. Ok.
hasta luego.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
oh baby, i can barely move.
i have never been so relaxed in my life. i can not even imagine any sudden movements anytime in my future. the thing is, 3 hours in a spa will do that to you i guess. when we heard about this deal, $30 for three hours that is, we couldn´t pass it up. one hour on a bus ride to san sebastian, and a world of relaxation opens up to you.
it goes like this.
you walk along the coast of cantabrica and observe the sand and waves as you do so. you enter la perla (the pearl, aw, how nice). you descend. hello spa. you talk to the lady who looks up your reservation. that´s the simple part to explain.
you go in this nasty little part with wet ground and tiny dressing rooms and ladies hosing off the ground and strange rows of lockers that are hard to figure out.
then, paradise. there is a room with various spa activities to choose from. everyone is wearing a swim cap and looks like a bunch of aliens wandering around. there is this huge pool. it´s luke-warm, there is mist coming up. there are about 15 stations, each with a jet massage for a different part of your body or at varying pressures. you know, legs, abs, shoulders, feet, etc. there are strange submerged water bikes and weight machines. and people just float around to different stations.
then there´s the other big pool. it´s slightly warmer. not quite hot tub, but getting closer. there´s a little waterfall to massage your shoulders, then my favorite. you lay down in this section where you rest your head. the bubbles surround the rest of your body and push you up. so you are laying down and the jets keep you in a flat position. and you just lay there and almost fall asleep. when you open your eyes, they burn really bad of the seawater. but a small price to pay. then you go to the little whirlpool section within the large pool. it fits three people and you hold on with your arms and it pushes your legs up. i had a hard time manuevering this one because my legs kept sinking. then there are little seats, and it alternates between a bubbles seat and a seat with jets. aliens are surrounding you with their matching blue swim caps. there are a few couples displaying much affection for each other. all is calmer than calm.
then there are heating beds. you pull a lever, they heat up, you lay down, and you have a view of the beach.
then the hot tub. it´s normal, but it´s huge and it also looks right out onto the beach. i can still feel the warmth and the jets. sigh. what a strange experience. i guess i never really thought i would be at an alien spa in san sebastian, looking at the beach, in spain. my life is so out of the ordinary right now. how is this all possibly happening to me?
the amelie soundtrack is so incredibly beautiful that i cannot comprehend it. it gives me the chills. yann tiersen is a genius.
i´m going to go read sur, a spanish short story. homework cannot be abandoned forever i guess. less than 25 days until i return. time is flying by.
it goes like this.
you walk along the coast of cantabrica and observe the sand and waves as you do so. you enter la perla (the pearl, aw, how nice). you descend. hello spa. you talk to the lady who looks up your reservation. that´s the simple part to explain.
you go in this nasty little part with wet ground and tiny dressing rooms and ladies hosing off the ground and strange rows of lockers that are hard to figure out.
then, paradise. there is a room with various spa activities to choose from. everyone is wearing a swim cap and looks like a bunch of aliens wandering around. there is this huge pool. it´s luke-warm, there is mist coming up. there are about 15 stations, each with a jet massage for a different part of your body or at varying pressures. you know, legs, abs, shoulders, feet, etc. there are strange submerged water bikes and weight machines. and people just float around to different stations.
then there´s the other big pool. it´s slightly warmer. not quite hot tub, but getting closer. there´s a little waterfall to massage your shoulders, then my favorite. you lay down in this section where you rest your head. the bubbles surround the rest of your body and push you up. so you are laying down and the jets keep you in a flat position. and you just lay there and almost fall asleep. when you open your eyes, they burn really bad of the seawater. but a small price to pay. then you go to the little whirlpool section within the large pool. it fits three people and you hold on with your arms and it pushes your legs up. i had a hard time manuevering this one because my legs kept sinking. then there are little seats, and it alternates between a bubbles seat and a seat with jets. aliens are surrounding you with their matching blue swim caps. there are a few couples displaying much affection for each other. all is calmer than calm.
then there are heating beds. you pull a lever, they heat up, you lay down, and you have a view of the beach.
then the hot tub. it´s normal, but it´s huge and it also looks right out onto the beach. i can still feel the warmth and the jets. sigh. what a strange experience. i guess i never really thought i would be at an alien spa in san sebastian, looking at the beach, in spain. my life is so out of the ordinary right now. how is this all possibly happening to me?
the amelie soundtrack is so incredibly beautiful that i cannot comprehend it. it gives me the chills. yann tiersen is a genius.
i´m going to go read sur, a spanish short story. homework cannot be abandoned forever i guess. less than 25 days until i return. time is flying by.
Friday, February 23, 2007
and so it goes.
we have it good. we all have it good and i think sometimes we don´t realize. maybe i´m speaking too generally. maybe other people realize it all the time. maybe we don´t all have it good. but i do. but it takes time for me sometimes to step back and realize that this life is good. and i am blessed.
quick health update: forked over the cash for the derm yesterday and we have finally diagnosed the mysterious red bumps on my body. sigh. phew. relief. turns out, my body is pretty freaky and weird. you see, i received some kind of bug bites when this all started. then, my immune system didn´t want to respond normally... by just getting rid of them. it found some allergy to, or something it couldn´t fix about these bug bites. so it started making it´s own bug bites. my body is producing these red bumps all by itself, and it seems that it´s having a grand old time doing it. my left arm is infested with them at this point in time. annoyance. however, the extremely sarcastic and english-speaking doctor prescribed me a foamy cream to put on them and a little antihystamine (yea, right, like i can even get close to spelling that correctly and like i have any desire to waste my time looking it up. ha, to say ¨have any desire¨in spanish is tener ganas de and it´s really common. that just popped in my head. wow, i stray from topic really easy.) to put these bumps to rest. AMEN. my vision is still fine. i had a little scare because my left eye vision isn´t as good as it was before, but the inflamation isn´t back and i have another appt. in a week to check up on it.
so. back to real life. last night was grand. kristen, melissa and i decided to be a bit more adventurous and venture to a real spanish bar, not the fake irish pub kind that our group tends to cluster towards. we wandered around asking a bunch of spanish people where this one amaia told me about was because we forgot what street it was on. we got there and met a really great group of five spaniards who are studying biology at the private university in Navarra. (we go to the public one) We went with them to another bar after. It was just so great because it´s always interesting to meet new people, and not only are we interested to hear what their lives and customs are like, but they like to hear about what we are like too. And it´s all very fun in the bar atmosphere because it´s not some formal meeting with an intercambio. It´s real life fun combined with learning which makes me feel like I´m not a complete waste of life. So yay. More Spanish friends.
Today we had our last group excursion to a bunch of towns around Navarra (the autonomous community where Pamplona is situated). We visited Sos (where Ferdinand the Catholic - you know, the guy married to Isabel who united almost all of Spain, sent Columbus over to America, and expelled all the Jews and Arabs from Spain? - was born in a castle), Javier (the town of San Francisco, an evangelist who traveled all over including to Asia), Sanguesa (another town that I believe is part of the Camino de Santiago), and Oibar (gee, I think that´s the basque spelling of the name of the city, but who knows. I can´t keep these things straight. By the way, basque is another language spoken in this region of Spain that has existed before the Romans even came to Spain and spanish (technically called castellano) was even spoken... in the b.c. times.
Here´s a little fact of the day, if you didn´t know. Spanish (castellano) isn´t the only language spoken in Spain. There´s also Basque (I´m not sure if that´s how you spell it in English, but it´s vasco or vasquence in spanish.), Catalán, and Gallego. Again, I don´t know any of these words in English, it gets a little bit confusing for me here while I´m describing. I have this intense linguistics class where the material is so in depth that I honestly don´t know most of the stuff in english because they aren´t common words and I have learned the subject only in spanish. so words like catalán (the language) i just don´t know how to say in english. and words like yeísmo (a characteristic of the southern dialect of spanish where they do not distinguish a difference between the sound of ll and y... yea, confusing, i know). i have no idea how to say these things in english! isn´t that crazy?
Anyhow, these villages were really very beautiful, but there´s only so much wonder I can find in seeing the difference in the arches of a romantic church and a gothic church. And you can only see so many carvings of religious people before they all start to meld into the same things.
I find much joy in eating on these excursions. It´s always like a 7 course meal. On today´s menu?
fresh bread
a mini sausage
little tiny pepper
bean soup
fish (maybe cod?)
block of ice cream
coffee
yup, 7 i was right. can we say full?
I would like to post pictures at a later date.
I bought these little truffles for my host family and Pilar was superhappy with me. Yay! Even though she has been grinding my nerves a little lately. She gets a little opinionated sometimes, something the teacher in charge of the study abroud program, Nelson, says is pretty common for Spanish moms. She can be a bit rude sometimes, but I think it´s just how they work here... she doesn´t know it. But you can never have a perfect, always happy relationship with anyone, and that´s what I have to remember. I loooooooooooove my real parents, but that doeesn´t mean I never get mad at them or they never get mad at me. That´s just how I have to look at it here. She´s going to act like a mom, regardless of whether or not she really is my mom. So, I´ll still be forced to drink whole milk, eat cold burnt toast, and throw away all my garbage in the one garbage can that the house has. It´s just my Spanish way of life.
Today Amaia brought home brownies! Ahh. I thought they didn´t exist. Of course, they said ¨galletas Americanas¨(American cookies) on the front, so really, it´s true. They don´t exist in Spain. They are just something that they think Americans eat. She warmed it up and it was still hard. It´s impossible to find a good soft brownie here.
I´m going to San Sebastian tomorrow, and I can´t wait! We are going to the spa that looks out onto the beach! ($30 for 3 hours in a spa, you cannot beat that, anywhere) There are hot tubs, huge pools of sea water, and I hear it´s paradise. What a life I have!! One hour bus ride gets me three hours in a spa. We are going to walk around and gift shop and get lunch and pintxos (little appetizer things), a specialty in San Sebastian. Can´t wait!
quick health update: forked over the cash for the derm yesterday and we have finally diagnosed the mysterious red bumps on my body. sigh. phew. relief. turns out, my body is pretty freaky and weird. you see, i received some kind of bug bites when this all started. then, my immune system didn´t want to respond normally... by just getting rid of them. it found some allergy to, or something it couldn´t fix about these bug bites. so it started making it´s own bug bites. my body is producing these red bumps all by itself, and it seems that it´s having a grand old time doing it. my left arm is infested with them at this point in time. annoyance. however, the extremely sarcastic and english-speaking doctor prescribed me a foamy cream to put on them and a little antihystamine (yea, right, like i can even get close to spelling that correctly and like i have any desire to waste my time looking it up. ha, to say ¨have any desire¨in spanish is tener ganas de and it´s really common. that just popped in my head. wow, i stray from topic really easy.) to put these bumps to rest. AMEN. my vision is still fine. i had a little scare because my left eye vision isn´t as good as it was before, but the inflamation isn´t back and i have another appt. in a week to check up on it.
so. back to real life. last night was grand. kristen, melissa and i decided to be a bit more adventurous and venture to a real spanish bar, not the fake irish pub kind that our group tends to cluster towards. we wandered around asking a bunch of spanish people where this one amaia told me about was because we forgot what street it was on. we got there and met a really great group of five spaniards who are studying biology at the private university in Navarra. (we go to the public one) We went with them to another bar after. It was just so great because it´s always interesting to meet new people, and not only are we interested to hear what their lives and customs are like, but they like to hear about what we are like too. And it´s all very fun in the bar atmosphere because it´s not some formal meeting with an intercambio. It´s real life fun combined with learning which makes me feel like I´m not a complete waste of life. So yay. More Spanish friends.
Today we had our last group excursion to a bunch of towns around Navarra (the autonomous community where Pamplona is situated). We visited Sos (where Ferdinand the Catholic - you know, the guy married to Isabel who united almost all of Spain, sent Columbus over to America, and expelled all the Jews and Arabs from Spain? - was born in a castle), Javier (the town of San Francisco, an evangelist who traveled all over including to Asia), Sanguesa (another town that I believe is part of the Camino de Santiago), and Oibar (gee, I think that´s the basque spelling of the name of the city, but who knows. I can´t keep these things straight. By the way, basque is another language spoken in this region of Spain that has existed before the Romans even came to Spain and spanish (technically called castellano) was even spoken... in the b.c. times.
Here´s a little fact of the day, if you didn´t know. Spanish (castellano) isn´t the only language spoken in Spain. There´s also Basque (I´m not sure if that´s how you spell it in English, but it´s vasco or vasquence in spanish.), Catalán, and Gallego. Again, I don´t know any of these words in English, it gets a little bit confusing for me here while I´m describing. I have this intense linguistics class where the material is so in depth that I honestly don´t know most of the stuff in english because they aren´t common words and I have learned the subject only in spanish. so words like catalán (the language) i just don´t know how to say in english. and words like yeísmo (a characteristic of the southern dialect of spanish where they do not distinguish a difference between the sound of ll and y... yea, confusing, i know). i have no idea how to say these things in english! isn´t that crazy?
Anyhow, these villages were really very beautiful, but there´s only so much wonder I can find in seeing the difference in the arches of a romantic church and a gothic church. And you can only see so many carvings of religious people before they all start to meld into the same things.
I find much joy in eating on these excursions. It´s always like a 7 course meal. On today´s menu?
fresh bread
a mini sausage
little tiny pepper
bean soup
fish (maybe cod?)
block of ice cream
coffee
yup, 7 i was right. can we say full?
I would like to post pictures at a later date.
I bought these little truffles for my host family and Pilar was superhappy with me. Yay! Even though she has been grinding my nerves a little lately. She gets a little opinionated sometimes, something the teacher in charge of the study abroud program, Nelson, says is pretty common for Spanish moms. She can be a bit rude sometimes, but I think it´s just how they work here... she doesn´t know it. But you can never have a perfect, always happy relationship with anyone, and that´s what I have to remember. I loooooooooooove my real parents, but that doeesn´t mean I never get mad at them or they never get mad at me. That´s just how I have to look at it here. She´s going to act like a mom, regardless of whether or not she really is my mom. So, I´ll still be forced to drink whole milk, eat cold burnt toast, and throw away all my garbage in the one garbage can that the house has. It´s just my Spanish way of life.
Today Amaia brought home brownies! Ahh. I thought they didn´t exist. Of course, they said ¨galletas Americanas¨(American cookies) on the front, so really, it´s true. They don´t exist in Spain. They are just something that they think Americans eat. She warmed it up and it was still hard. It´s impossible to find a good soft brownie here.
I´m going to San Sebastian tomorrow, and I can´t wait! We are going to the spa that looks out onto the beach! ($30 for 3 hours in a spa, you cannot beat that, anywhere) There are hot tubs, huge pools of sea water, and I hear it´s paradise. What a life I have!! One hour bus ride gets me three hours in a spa. We are going to walk around and gift shop and get lunch and pintxos (little appetizer things), a specialty in San Sebastian. Can´t wait!
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
i get by with a little help from my friends.
Nothing as soothing as listening to The Beatles. And some great friends and family - I love you guys.
Hm, I was going to end the blog there, but why not write more? Today is a normal day, you know - school, meeting with my girl intercambio, service project to talk with spanish people in english. pretty standard.
yesterday 20 new bumps sprouted, mostly all over my neck. freaky. maybe it´s a food allergy. who the heck knows? and who the heck wants to go see a spanish dermatologist? not me. but, i figured that means it isn´t the pool that´s giving me bumps, so darnit, i´m going to go swimming.
so i did today. and the fake lifeguard didn´t even disturb me once.
i have been eating chocolate like it´s nobody´s business. why does it taste so good? i just can´t figure it out. how can something so silly make my brain happy?
i don´t feel like being deep or thinking about much today in my blog. thinking is too much effort for me right now. i have had enough. i´d rather be numb right now. i have hit a stagnant point in my trip where, once again, i would prefer to return home. it sounds horribly unappreciative, but there are times when i feel this way.
i just realize that i´m not going to get good enough at spanish where i´m going to be comfortable in a regular public setting. and it´s gonna be this wild thing when i go home to the u.s. and don´t have to think so hard just to order a sandwich or ask for a larger size in a shirt at the store. it´s gonna be wild. just wild. there is no place i can go in spain and just feel comfortable. there is always that challenge... not so much a challenge, but a discomfort in being a foreigner. maybe when i return i´ll have this appreciation for how easy it is to get by on your native language in the world.
today is a blob. an amorphous blob of blobbyness. i feel very indifferent towards it. and everything. everyone´s always telling me not to worry about things. in fact, i would have to say that one of the most popular phrases here is ¨tranquila¨ (calm) or ¨no te preocupes¨ (don´t worry). but i don´t know. i´m not so much worried or needing to be calmed, i´m just always thinking about things. maybe that´s a good thing, but right now, i don´t want to be thinking about anything. i want to sit in complete and utter calm, in a tub of warm chocolate.
there. that´s my blobby blog of today. blob.
off to meet the intercambio and talk nonsense for an hour. ugh. wish me luck.
Hm, I was going to end the blog there, but why not write more? Today is a normal day, you know - school, meeting with my girl intercambio, service project to talk with spanish people in english. pretty standard.
yesterday 20 new bumps sprouted, mostly all over my neck. freaky. maybe it´s a food allergy. who the heck knows? and who the heck wants to go see a spanish dermatologist? not me. but, i figured that means it isn´t the pool that´s giving me bumps, so darnit, i´m going to go swimming.
so i did today. and the fake lifeguard didn´t even disturb me once.
i have been eating chocolate like it´s nobody´s business. why does it taste so good? i just can´t figure it out. how can something so silly make my brain happy?
i don´t feel like being deep or thinking about much today in my blog. thinking is too much effort for me right now. i have had enough. i´d rather be numb right now. i have hit a stagnant point in my trip where, once again, i would prefer to return home. it sounds horribly unappreciative, but there are times when i feel this way.
i just realize that i´m not going to get good enough at spanish where i´m going to be comfortable in a regular public setting. and it´s gonna be this wild thing when i go home to the u.s. and don´t have to think so hard just to order a sandwich or ask for a larger size in a shirt at the store. it´s gonna be wild. just wild. there is no place i can go in spain and just feel comfortable. there is always that challenge... not so much a challenge, but a discomfort in being a foreigner. maybe when i return i´ll have this appreciation for how easy it is to get by on your native language in the world.
today is a blob. an amorphous blob of blobbyness. i feel very indifferent towards it. and everything. everyone´s always telling me not to worry about things. in fact, i would have to say that one of the most popular phrases here is ¨tranquila¨ (calm) or ¨no te preocupes¨ (don´t worry). but i don´t know. i´m not so much worried or needing to be calmed, i´m just always thinking about things. maybe that´s a good thing, but right now, i don´t want to be thinking about anything. i want to sit in complete and utter calm, in a tub of warm chocolate.
there. that´s my blobby blog of today. blob.
off to meet the intercambio and talk nonsense for an hour. ugh. wish me luck.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Ah, Granada, That´s the Life
I´m not quite sure that I´m ready for this blog entry. This blog entry is going to be one to blow other blog entries out of the water. I need to capture a piece of Granada, and I don´t know if I have the strength right now to do that. To capture Granada. I´m feeling that lots of repetition is going to be needed in the following text. Because writing things one time doesn´t get the point across. For example, when I say Granada was amazing, I can´t just say it was amazing. I have to say that Granada was amazing amazing amazing amazing amazing. And that still doesn´t even begin to describe the extent of it´s amazingness. I suppose words like amazingness will need to be made up also to fully get the point across.
Where do I begin? I will begin with the worst of the trip - por supuesto (of course) - the bus ride. Oh, holy ten consecutive hours in a bus. That is never a good idea, by any standard, but it´s what you do when you are a poor student who is spending far too much money on weekend trips and just cannot afford to take a bus to the nearest airport, fly to a city close to Granada, and catch another bus to Granada. You can only afford to sit on a bus next to stinky people, give yourself permanent (ok, ok, only temporary) neck pains, and pray continuously that you will receive more than three hours of sleep. Which, por supuesto, you don´t. You can, however, tune in to several movies that would not normally catch Danielle´s attention in English, let alone in Spanish. Star Wars Episode 2 (where Yoda sounds like a fleghmy (hmm don´t know if that´s spelled right) old man dying of too much cigarette smoke and a far-too-heavy spanish accent). National Security. Sahara. Surviving Christmas. So yea, you stick to iPod, unsuccessful efforts of falling into a deep sleep, and looking out the window longing to arrive.
Well, we made it. In fact, we arrived in Granada when the weather had reached a very satisfiable 75 degree mark. Oh, how I had wished that I was wearing a t-shirt under the two layers of sweaters and winter jacket I was wearing from Pamplona. We trudged across foreign lands with our suitcases, wondering how we were ever going to find our reserva (the place we reserved, not quite sure if i can classify it as a hotel yet). We finally stopped in a bakery where they told us we only had a ten-minute walk and gave us directions. Yay!
As we came closer to our reserva, we were in awe. The route to the reserva was straight through the charming, narrow brick-paths of the central part of Granada. As we walked along the Darro River, we had the perfect view of the Alhambra, a castle that I will get to a bit later. Everything about that journey would have been ideal, had I not had to lug my ridiculous rolling suitcase (without a large strap to pick it up and carry it) up the huge hill to our reserva. But nevertheless, it was thrilling.
We couldn´t find our address - things were pretty complicated up there on the hill - so we walked into a building to ask these two ladies for help. The almost laughed us out of the room and we soon discovered that it was an all-male residence in which we had just entered... for adolescent boys. No wonder all those boys outside the fence were looking at us so funny. We joked after that we probably seemed like a group of three prostitutes coming in for a visit... oh, the embarrassments you get so used to while living your life in a foreign country.
We soon found our real place. It was called ¨Residencia de Invitados Carmen de la Victoria.¨ My spanish dad found it online, and I thought we were only allowed to stay there because we were students studying abroad. However, we discovered that it was a very exclusive place. Probably only open to us because it was winter, non-tourism season, we really lucked out. For 85 euro/person/2 nights, we slept, ate all our meals, and had the view of a lifetime. This is going to be hard to explain.
Ok. Our hotel overlooked all of Granada. All the mountains, all the town, and the huge Alhambra. It was surrounded by these romantic, slightly-overgrown gardens. Arches of bushes, curving twigs, trees covered with flowers, ground covered with pebbles in the patterns of flowers and vines. At night, it was lit up with stained-glass lamps. And through the garden was the view of all the city. It is completely indescribable. We felt like we had fallen into some kind of fairy tale. The rooms were pretty standard - clean, bathroom, all the things we are not accustomed to after staying in that fleabag hostel in Barcelona. The rooms were like a sauna. And were we going to complain after practically being frozen out of our Barcelona hostel? heck no!
The meals however, wow, the meals. Delicious, three course meals, with fancy tables, wine, the whole shebang (shebang? is that even a word?). Yuuuuum. I gained about 10 pounds and will be working that off this week. On our second day there we noticed a series of framed pictures on the wall. About 30 pictures, including THE Paul Simon (and countless other famous people who i wish I recognized). We checked it over with the waiters - yes, they all stayed there. WE STAYED IN THE SAME RESIDENCE AS PAUL SIMON. I felt like royalty. How did these three, ridiculously goofy (come on, all americans in spain are goofy) students get to stay here? We were surrounded by all these really intelligent professors who were staying there for some seminar about animals. And we were just these silly girls, living in the lap of luxury.
Ok, so that´s the residence. On to more important things.
Our first day, Friday, we took some time to look around the city. We saw the famous cathedral, all the other important buildings and churches in town, and started gift shopping. By the time we were settled in the residence, it was pretty late, so we had a few hours to do all this before dinner-time. Then dinner, then much-anticipated sleep in a comfortable bed!
The next morning, we awoke at the crack of dawn. Ok, we woke up at 8. But it seemed pretty early. We had a tour scheduled at 9 at the Alhambra. We took the ever-famous ¨Alhambra Bus¨ (only famous because we saw them EVERYWHERE and the streets were so narrow, they came close to running me over several times) to the Alhambra. It took us all over the the top of the hill of the town, and it was an experience in itself. I was just in awe of the town - it´s beauty, how it stayed so quaint through all these years and all these tourists, the view, the wonder of how something like this could even exist in life. I had an epiphany at that point - I must someday bring my family back to Granada, when I have kids old enough to appreciate it. It is like nothing I have ever seen in my life. How am I, a 19-year-old, so fortunate to be seeing Granada? I am almost alone in this country across the world, exploring ancient cities, and seeing these incredible things! How is it even possible? Is this real? And why am I so fortunate? How did I just plan a trip to Granada and do it? Just like that! Just a few days before I went! I just went! I didn´t have expectations too high, just the claims of my host family that I needed to see it. And boy were they right. I think it changed my life, although I can´t seem to elaborate on how.
A little bit of background from Wikipedia about the Alhambra:
The Alhambra (Arabic: الحمراء = Al Ħamrā'; literally "the red") is an ancient palace and fortress complex of the Moorish monarchs of Granada, in southern Spain (known as Al-Andalus when the fortress was constructed), occupying a hilly terrace on the south-eastern border of the city of Granada. It was the residence of the Muslim kings of Granada and their court, but is currently a museum exhibiting exquisite Islamic architecture.
I guess that makes it sound relatively dull, but it was anything but. It has a section of these palaces covered in this ornate muslim decorations, incredibly detailed ceramics and tile-work, just fantastic fountains and ornamentation. We then saw part of Generalife, the garden section that was added on much later, but was a refuge for the royalty. Unfortunately, it had started raining toward the beginning of our tour, so parts of the Generalife were closed off. We got a pretty yucky day to tour, but it was so beautiful that it didn´t matter. Lastly, we saw the oldest part of the Alhambra, the Alcazaba. It was the fortress part of the castle, the section that you could see from our hotel. The main purpose was for defense, and there were these mazes that were used for military purposes and a huge trench so people could not get into the castle. Pretty cool. We took more pictures than you would think to be humanely possible, and it would take about 6,324 hours to add them all to the blog, so you will all have to wait til we are in person or rely on the excellence of quick facebook uploads if you are in the college population-part of my blog-readers. I traveled with Kristen and Kate, a girl who should forever be known as master photographer. Kristen and I were practically at a photo shoot the whole trip, and this might have explained the fact that we spent 5 hours at the Alhambra.
We then got lunch at the hotel... yum... and did more shopping til dropping. The shops were small and unique closer to our hotel, and then we found some bigger, more mainstream stores closer to where we got off the bus station upon arrival. We checked out a few other buildings, plazas, etc, and headed home for dinner. Not before frequenting yet another bakery, something that´s commonplace for us in Spain. It is always to my disappointment that I can´t just find a simple brownie or soft cookie - I am always stuck with some pastry or ornate cake with too much cream and not enough substance. But I will continue my search.
Dinner was incredible, a typical Granadian meal for us - bread, soup, meatballs with fries, and yogurt (strangely, instead of the normal piece of fruit for dessert) with water and wine. After that we were too exhausted once again, and went to sleep in anticipation of the long bus ride which we had to catch at 8 in the morning.
We did see something a bit strange before falling asleep. The only picture on the wall in the hotel room was of one specific room in the Alhambra - the one where an entire family was assassinated. The fountain in the floor is said to have bloodstains. A leeeeettle bit creepy if you ask me.
Anyhow, we slept well, didn´t get assassinated, caught our bus the next morning, and made our voyage home safely.
Thanks to my staying in on Thursday night before embarking on my trip, I´m ahead in school, feel like I have some free time for once.
One month until I come home. Crazy how time flies. Crazy. I am feeling both horrible and incredibly excited about coming home. We will see how this changes within the month.
Where do I begin? I will begin with the worst of the trip - por supuesto (of course) - the bus ride. Oh, holy ten consecutive hours in a bus. That is never a good idea, by any standard, but it´s what you do when you are a poor student who is spending far too much money on weekend trips and just cannot afford to take a bus to the nearest airport, fly to a city close to Granada, and catch another bus to Granada. You can only afford to sit on a bus next to stinky people, give yourself permanent (ok, ok, only temporary) neck pains, and pray continuously that you will receive more than three hours of sleep. Which, por supuesto, you don´t. You can, however, tune in to several movies that would not normally catch Danielle´s attention in English, let alone in Spanish. Star Wars Episode 2 (where Yoda sounds like a fleghmy (hmm don´t know if that´s spelled right) old man dying of too much cigarette smoke and a far-too-heavy spanish accent). National Security. Sahara. Surviving Christmas. So yea, you stick to iPod, unsuccessful efforts of falling into a deep sleep, and looking out the window longing to arrive.
Well, we made it. In fact, we arrived in Granada when the weather had reached a very satisfiable 75 degree mark. Oh, how I had wished that I was wearing a t-shirt under the two layers of sweaters and winter jacket I was wearing from Pamplona. We trudged across foreign lands with our suitcases, wondering how we were ever going to find our reserva (the place we reserved, not quite sure if i can classify it as a hotel yet). We finally stopped in a bakery where they told us we only had a ten-minute walk and gave us directions. Yay!
As we came closer to our reserva, we were in awe. The route to the reserva was straight through the charming, narrow brick-paths of the central part of Granada. As we walked along the Darro River, we had the perfect view of the Alhambra, a castle that I will get to a bit later. Everything about that journey would have been ideal, had I not had to lug my ridiculous rolling suitcase (without a large strap to pick it up and carry it) up the huge hill to our reserva. But nevertheless, it was thrilling.
We couldn´t find our address - things were pretty complicated up there on the hill - so we walked into a building to ask these two ladies for help. The almost laughed us out of the room and we soon discovered that it was an all-male residence in which we had just entered... for adolescent boys. No wonder all those boys outside the fence were looking at us so funny. We joked after that we probably seemed like a group of three prostitutes coming in for a visit... oh, the embarrassments you get so used to while living your life in a foreign country.
We soon found our real place. It was called ¨Residencia de Invitados Carmen de la Victoria.¨ My spanish dad found it online, and I thought we were only allowed to stay there because we were students studying abroad. However, we discovered that it was a very exclusive place. Probably only open to us because it was winter, non-tourism season, we really lucked out. For 85 euro/person/2 nights, we slept, ate all our meals, and had the view of a lifetime. This is going to be hard to explain.
Ok. Our hotel overlooked all of Granada. All the mountains, all the town, and the huge Alhambra. It was surrounded by these romantic, slightly-overgrown gardens. Arches of bushes, curving twigs, trees covered with flowers, ground covered with pebbles in the patterns of flowers and vines. At night, it was lit up with stained-glass lamps. And through the garden was the view of all the city. It is completely indescribable. We felt like we had fallen into some kind of fairy tale. The rooms were pretty standard - clean, bathroom, all the things we are not accustomed to after staying in that fleabag hostel in Barcelona. The rooms were like a sauna. And were we going to complain after practically being frozen out of our Barcelona hostel? heck no!
The meals however, wow, the meals. Delicious, three course meals, with fancy tables, wine, the whole shebang (shebang? is that even a word?). Yuuuuum. I gained about 10 pounds and will be working that off this week. On our second day there we noticed a series of framed pictures on the wall. About 30 pictures, including THE Paul Simon (and countless other famous people who i wish I recognized). We checked it over with the waiters - yes, they all stayed there. WE STAYED IN THE SAME RESIDENCE AS PAUL SIMON. I felt like royalty. How did these three, ridiculously goofy (come on, all americans in spain are goofy) students get to stay here? We were surrounded by all these really intelligent professors who were staying there for some seminar about animals. And we were just these silly girls, living in the lap of luxury.
Ok, so that´s the residence. On to more important things.
Our first day, Friday, we took some time to look around the city. We saw the famous cathedral, all the other important buildings and churches in town, and started gift shopping. By the time we were settled in the residence, it was pretty late, so we had a few hours to do all this before dinner-time. Then dinner, then much-anticipated sleep in a comfortable bed!
The next morning, we awoke at the crack of dawn. Ok, we woke up at 8. But it seemed pretty early. We had a tour scheduled at 9 at the Alhambra. We took the ever-famous ¨Alhambra Bus¨ (only famous because we saw them EVERYWHERE and the streets were so narrow, they came close to running me over several times) to the Alhambra. It took us all over the the top of the hill of the town, and it was an experience in itself. I was just in awe of the town - it´s beauty, how it stayed so quaint through all these years and all these tourists, the view, the wonder of how something like this could even exist in life. I had an epiphany at that point - I must someday bring my family back to Granada, when I have kids old enough to appreciate it. It is like nothing I have ever seen in my life. How am I, a 19-year-old, so fortunate to be seeing Granada? I am almost alone in this country across the world, exploring ancient cities, and seeing these incredible things! How is it even possible? Is this real? And why am I so fortunate? How did I just plan a trip to Granada and do it? Just like that! Just a few days before I went! I just went! I didn´t have expectations too high, just the claims of my host family that I needed to see it. And boy were they right. I think it changed my life, although I can´t seem to elaborate on how.
A little bit of background from Wikipedia about the Alhambra:
The Alhambra (Arabic: الحمراء = Al Ħamrā'; literally "the red") is an ancient palace and fortress complex of the Moorish monarchs of Granada, in southern Spain (known as Al-Andalus when the fortress was constructed), occupying a hilly terrace on the south-eastern border of the city of Granada. It was the residence of the Muslim kings of Granada and their court, but is currently a museum exhibiting exquisite Islamic architecture.
I guess that makes it sound relatively dull, but it was anything but. It has a section of these palaces covered in this ornate muslim decorations, incredibly detailed ceramics and tile-work, just fantastic fountains and ornamentation. We then saw part of Generalife, the garden section that was added on much later, but was a refuge for the royalty. Unfortunately, it had started raining toward the beginning of our tour, so parts of the Generalife were closed off. We got a pretty yucky day to tour, but it was so beautiful that it didn´t matter. Lastly, we saw the oldest part of the Alhambra, the Alcazaba. It was the fortress part of the castle, the section that you could see from our hotel. The main purpose was for defense, and there were these mazes that were used for military purposes and a huge trench so people could not get into the castle. Pretty cool. We took more pictures than you would think to be humanely possible, and it would take about 6,324 hours to add them all to the blog, so you will all have to wait til we are in person or rely on the excellence of quick facebook uploads if you are in the college population-part of my blog-readers. I traveled with Kristen and Kate, a girl who should forever be known as master photographer. Kristen and I were practically at a photo shoot the whole trip, and this might have explained the fact that we spent 5 hours at the Alhambra.
We then got lunch at the hotel... yum... and did more shopping til dropping. The shops were small and unique closer to our hotel, and then we found some bigger, more mainstream stores closer to where we got off the bus station upon arrival. We checked out a few other buildings, plazas, etc, and headed home for dinner. Not before frequenting yet another bakery, something that´s commonplace for us in Spain. It is always to my disappointment that I can´t just find a simple brownie or soft cookie - I am always stuck with some pastry or ornate cake with too much cream and not enough substance. But I will continue my search.
Dinner was incredible, a typical Granadian meal for us - bread, soup, meatballs with fries, and yogurt (strangely, instead of the normal piece of fruit for dessert) with water and wine. After that we were too exhausted once again, and went to sleep in anticipation of the long bus ride which we had to catch at 8 in the morning.
We did see something a bit strange before falling asleep. The only picture on the wall in the hotel room was of one specific room in the Alhambra - the one where an entire family was assassinated. The fountain in the floor is said to have bloodstains. A leeeeettle bit creepy if you ask me.
Anyhow, we slept well, didn´t get assassinated, caught our bus the next morning, and made our voyage home safely.
Thanks to my staying in on Thursday night before embarking on my trip, I´m ahead in school, feel like I have some free time for once.
One month until I come home. Crazy how time flies. Crazy. I am feeling both horrible and incredibly excited about coming home. We will see how this changes within the month.
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