Tuesday, March 29, 2011

"En un ciclo sin fin . . ."

So I guess I´ll let you see and hear what I´ve been up to for the last month. . .
But back to what's been goin on. . . I'm sitting here in my room with the sun shining down on me (windows thrown open) and basking in the wonder of being done with finals! How this semester has flown! Although I still have a presentation for one of my classes on Thursday, I am basically done with classwork until August. ¿Qué? Ya, I'm not sure how that's possible. Last week was rather uneventful, I went to class, procrastinated writing my paper, eventually wrote my paper, then headed off on another whirlwind adventure. All in a week's work.
So on Friday, in the morning, I cranked out a 2000 word essay for my art history class that was due on Monday (I also had 2 finals and a presentation over a book I finished Thursday night). Then it was off to Barcelona for me! It probably wasn't the best choice considering what all happened on Monday, but how could I study in Spain for 3 months and not make it to Barcelona? So. . . as a side note, Spanish people don't arrive at the airport til their flight is like about to board. I got there 1.5 hours early and maybe 1 other person there ended up being on my flight. Qué ridiculo! But ya, made it to Barcelona and barely caught the train into the metro station (if I missed it, would of had to wait another 30 min). Hopped on the metro to Horta (el barrio con mi hostal) and found Jordan waiting for me in the lil plaza. . . fun lil note, there was also a piano just chillin in the plaza. We dropped my stuff off then headed to Park Güell designed by Gaudí. It was real pretty, but also so busy. So then we wandered around a bit before heading back to hunt for dinner at a supermercado near the hostel. It was crazy trying to find peanut butter, until we decided that Barça doesn't believe in it, so we settled for fake nutella. We had a lovely dinner on the roof-top terrace of our hostel with Barça shining in the background. Ended up watching Spain vs. Czech Republic futból game and trying some cabeza de conejo with the hostel owners(?). We also enjoyed free sangria and olives. Yum! After that we hit up La Rambla (main street in Barça). It seemed like night life was about to start hoppin, but the metro only ran til 2 so we headed home early.
On Saturday, we took our time to get ready and head out. Jordan hadn't slept much lately. After having a lovely breakfast out in the sun, we headed to the Sagrada Familia (another Gaudí work, but this one has been butchered by people trying to finish it without the original plans). It's impressive nonetheless. We then commenced wandering to see some of Gaudí's other works, considering Barcelona is Gaudíland, it wasn't too hard. We saw La Rambla by day which was super fun, thanks to all the street performers (most were like statues but Jordan couldn't help but watch for them to move). We chilled in Plaza Real a bit and got to see some super cool Brazilian dancing, which I really can never remember the name of. Back on La Rambla we ran into some of Jordan's Alicante friends (loco!) who were also visiting. I had the best juice of my life from a market: fresh mango and coconut. SO YUM! We found our way to a nice little park where we enjoyed some more nutella sandwiches for lunch and chillaxed. On our way to the hill/mountain with a view of the Gothic center of town, we found a playground. With swings! ¡QUE DIVERTIDO!! Travelling with Jordan was definitely a great idea! We then headed up the hilltain. Lots of nice gardens and great views of la ciudad or ciutat if we goin with Catalan (language/dialect of the region). (Random side note: I don't know how you could learn Spanish if studying in Barça, so much English plus Catalan = very lil Spanish). We found the fancy pants Museo Nacional de Barcelona and Olympic Stadium. Yay for wandering! Then best discovery of all the Fuente Mágica! We saw the horario then headed on yet another search for a supermercado. This time just finding the store was long, but when we did find one, it was awesome! Two stories! Grabbed our 1.45€ bottle of wine along with bread and cheese and headed back to the fountain. We ate and drank and watched. So much fun!!!! Distinctly different shows for each half-hour display (classical. . . alright to be expected, 80's American music. . . strange but I dig, Disney (in Spanish). . . OH MY GOSH. . . SO GREAT!!) So after watching all these and finishing our wine we decided to head back to the hostel since Jordan had to be at the airport at 5am. I decided to accompany him since I didn't want to travel Barça by myself. So I got to sleep and study for 8 hours in the aeroport. More fun than I would have guessed. Got home, went to Mass, had some Regma (ice cream), edited, threw pics together, bed.
Monday came sooner than I would have liked, but it all turned out pretty well I think. (I can't say definitively since I am yet to receive my grades) Anyways, sorry this was so long, but since I will be very limited when I get on my own (without a computer) I thought I should make it count!
Can't wait to see the parents in 4 short days and show them all Spain has to offer!

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Boom! . . . follow the crowd? . . . !

Well. . . it appears that another week has passed and not without a whole load of new life experiences and exciting stories. Last week was fairly uneventful as weekdays rarely are. Went to class, blah blah blah. I did make some peanut butter galletas for the fam. They loved 'em of course. They keep telling me that I´m gonna make 'em all fat. Oh well ;) So this past weekend was Las Fallas in Valencia. . . WOW (I don´t think this word is strong enough, but it´s the best I got)
A little history on the fiesta before I divulge my personal experience with it. It goes like this. . . St. Joseph´s feast day is March 19 and as you might know, pretty much all of Spain´s fiestas pretty much are tied to saints or other holy days. St. Joseph was a carpenter and as such would, apparently, save all his scraps and mess-ups for a year. Then once a year, he would set all these scraps on fire. Kind of an out with the old, in with the new thing. So artisans in Valencia took this to heart and would burn their scraps on Mar 19. This somehow morphed into what is Las Fallas today (in case you were wondering las fallas means the faults/failures). It is a week-long celebrations full of fireworks, food, and of course drinking. Every day they have what is called a mascleta (basically the loudest firework display possible) in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento (they have a special cage and everything for them). In addition to the mascleta, pretty much everyone in the city gets in on the firework fun by randomly lighting and dropping firecrackers. You get over the booms pretty quick. The last day of the week-long celebration (Mar 19) is when they do the biggest partying. They light on fire these enormous structures that they have been working on all year (each bario has one at least). Anyways. . . my side of the story
I got to Valencia Friday afternoon with my dear friend Emily in tow. We planned on meeting our other dear friend, Elizabeth, at the fountain in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento (it was the most specific location I could come up with that was close to both of us). For starters, people start pickin spots for the mascleta around 1200 (it doesn´t start til 200). Also, it´s not good when cell phones don´t function properly. No worries, we found each other, if a lil later than expected. The mascleta, by the way, was super intense and increíble. No words. We then had the joy of finding our hotel which happened to be in a suberb of Valencia. I had looked up some directions to get there, but silly me, didn´t write them down. This led to 2 hours of adventuring in an industrial wasteland, making 3 new friends who didn´t know what we were talking about, and finally getting good help from some nice men in a cafetería. The hotel was super nice (free hard candies in the lobby, best). We ventured back to Valencia for dinner and the Nit de Foc (night of light). Crowded bar and crowded streets. But the fuegos artificiales were the best I have ever seen. Super close, a ton, so loud, AMAZING! Unfortunately the crowds were so big and so tightly packed that I had my first pick pocket experience (no worries I was gonna get a new phone when I returned anyways). Overall incredible day.
Saturday (the big day!) we slept in (after a 130 fireworks show, I think we deserved it). After about 5 full buses passed us and the nice old couple we made friends with, we finally caught a bus into Valencia. We were meeting up with Jordan (in town for the day with 400 other Alicantinos) so we went for the same meeting place, luckily he got our call and found us just fine. And exciting! Elaine was with him too (another TU kid in Spain right now). So today´s mascleta was even better (I know, hard to believe) but ground shakingly, chest poundingly better. Our day was filled mostly with wandering around town (had my first Döner Kebab for lunch). We met up with Emily´s fam, then chilled in a nice little parque until dinnertime ish. More exciting! we stumbled into Mass at the Catedral. Afterwards, we picked up some paella from a sketch stand (and graciously paid for by Emily´s dad, thanks!). So the crema doesn´t start until 1000 for the lil fallas and not until 1200 for the big ones. This allowed us to sit in another lil parque for a bit and just catch up while watching small children play with fireworks (no adult supervision, mind you). We found the little fallas burning when we began wandering again. Then we hung out in front of a big falla until 1200 and got to see it lit on fire. WOW!!!! It was completely gone in less than 5 min. You have to see the pics to realize the intensity of this. Us girls went back to the hotel after that since we all had to get on trains/buses early in the morn.
Sunday was all travel interspersed with wonderful conversation and a fresh baguette (yum!). Got home and slept very well. This week will be full of actual work, bleh! But that´s what happens when next week is my last week here! (Santander of course, not Europe). Oh ya, I´ll be off to Barcelona in 3 days. . .

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Picos y Tortitas

Another week has come and gone. . . I don´t quite understand how it goes so fast. But, such is life. Classes are continuing as normal. No Art History last lunes thanks to Carnaval, but other than that, normal. I forgot to mention last time, that despite our two week break, we once again have franceses. Last week it was 3 older boys (17 & 18) (one was kinda cute, but don´t tell Allen). This week we have 3 girls, haven´t had the chance to chat with em yet, but I´m sure there will be fun had. The most exciting thing from the weekdays had to be receiving Janine´s paquete. NEW CLOTHES!!!! What living out of a suitcase will do . . .
Anyways, on sábado we headed out to the Picos de Europa. These are the montañas that are south of Santander. Our natural border from the rest of Spain (we are a lil different up here). I can´t begin to describe how gorgeous it was. But, take my word ¡que increíble! Also, there was a nice coat of snow up there. This ended up being to our disadvantage as we weren´t able to actually hike down the mountain. (Not prepared and kinda dangerous). The views we did get we still impresionante. And there was a bit of hiking. With our unexpected free time, we visited the lil pueblo of Potes (biggest town in the Picos). It was preciosa. It was all old and cute and stuff. We also got to see a church from the 10th century. ¡Qué antiguo! It was cute and lil too.
On Sunday, I made tortitas (pancakes) for the fam. They seemed to quite enjoy them (as a dessert). Yum. . . no syrup but caramel sauce and chocolate sprinkles. I´m really starting to take to heart this whole cooking by sight thing. And cooking everything from scratch. . . o dear! 50s housewife here I come! But ya, went to Mass at another church here in Santander, Santa Lucia (which happens to be next to the biggest night scene here). I do love irony. Pretty church, but really it´s hard to find a non-pretty, non-old church around these parts. Spent the rest of the day studying and working on my presentation for Monday. Now that that´s done I get to look forward to Friday. ¡¡¡LAS FALLAS!!!

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Can You Find la Rana?

Who doesn´t love a paid excursion with his study abroad program? A crazy person. We got to stay in a 4* hotel with free breakfast. Woot! I love eating as much as I want for free! And of course saving a lil for later too. Anyways, we arrived on Friday at like 830. We waited a bit in the hotel before Gloria gave us a mini tour for the best places to eat. Ended up at a restaurante chino for dinner. Yum! Cheap and soooo tasty; I had a nido which consists of a bowl made of French fries and filled with meat and veggies a Chinese style. I thought that I might go out more but ended up just staying in. That Chinese really put us in a comatose state.
Obviously, Saturday was tour day. We got up, had breakfast!, and started off on our grand adventure of Salamanca. We saw the convent where the cloistered nuns are and the night club that some how got part of it. And then we saw the big ole church that you can´t see the towers unless you are in the library across the street (or far away). The library actually is the casa de conchas which was some kind of token of love or something back in the day. After these we headed off to the cathedrals, yep they have 2. The nueva (14th century) and vieja (12th century) (technically it´s all one building) but ya they decided to make the new one to stay up with the times but couldn´t bring themselves to destroy the old one. It was really cool, we did a tour on top of the cathedral. There are sneaky balconies up high that people can walk on. It was also a great view of the city. On the facade, when they did renovations in the 20th century, they added a few engravings not to be missed (astronaut and ice cream cone!) We headed to the university where it was every man for himself to find the lucky frog. Ya, I needed some help, it´s really small and it would have taken a long time without a hint. (Hopefully the luck still applies.) Saw a real life classroom from the 13th century and the library from the same time period. Sweet! And got to see the journey to wisdom (which turns out to be a woman). After all this touring, it was time for a tasty little plato combinado which was a bistec, huevo frito, patatas fritas, y ensalada. Yum! After that saw a weird museum that was in a lovely house, Casa Lis. Chilled at the hotel before getting the best tapas ever (well so far). Did I mention these tapas came free with my drink? Not so common in the north, so missing out up here. Chorizo y una costilla! Con una nueva bebida tinto de verano. So ya, ended up go to bed relatively early for the biggest night of Carnaval since they don´t really do the whole crazy street parties there, or most northern locales.
Sunday! Went to Mass at the Catedral Nueva, which I ended up saying liturgy of the hours in Latin as well. So cool! And then we wandered around a bit before hopping on the bus back home. Santander Real Racing played Real Madrid, got to watch a bit of the game. . . we ended up losing 1-3 but at least we scored one!
Anyways, this seems like a particularly long post, so I´ll just stop rambling and let you wait til next week. . . get to go on a real adventure! Picos de Europa

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

French are Friends, not Food

Well. . . I suppose that is only kinda true. French people are super nice I´ve found out. . . nothing like I was expecting with my patriotic distaste for los Franceses. But, they do also have delicious food (not that I tried a whole lot, but what I ate was muy rico!) So the trip started out in the Santander bus station at 630 on Friday morning, bleh, but that got us into Irun (closest Spanish city to the border) by around 1030. We then proceeded to wander our way into France! We got directions from a nice Spanish man out washing his car (much better than the suggested running across the freeway). Hendaye was a cute lil French town . . . surprisingly you can actually tell the difference with only a river in between. From Hendaye we took the train to Biarritz (a lovely coastal city) for only 4 euro, win!
So Biarritz, when we arrived we were just gonna go to the tourist information center and find a hotel, good plan, right? Well the tourist info was in the "town center". (I´m still not sure where the town center was). Anyways, we eventually found the tourist center after walking a bit, resting to eat our bocadillos, and asking the nice ice cream man (anyone for some glaces?) So after that we had our map and were on the hunt for the hotel. We had just figured out what to do when an old lady with vibrant lipstick came up to us saying Bonjour!. We were like okay and then she walked to the end of the block and told us how to get to the hotel we were looking for (note to anyone reading, she only spoke French and lots of it). But after deciding that the hotel was good, we went to the lighthouse (amazing views!) and who doesn´t love 248 stairs in a spiral staircase? But ya, overall I really enjoyed Biarritz we got to watch the sunset out on this little island-y thing with a statue of Mary. And pizza for dinner with crepes con nutella. Yum!
Saturday was our adventure to Lourdes. It began with a 530 walk to the train station (not to forget the 2 drunk French boys who thought we could be from Sydney). In case you were wondering, French train station ticket kiosks only take credit cards with fancy chip things (we didn´t have that kind of card). We also didn´t have enough money in change (dang!). But the nice conductor man, who spoke English, was able to tell us that we could simply buy our tickets on the train (Thank goodness!) Lourdes is a gorgeous little city (even if it is the Disney World of Catholicism, ya 200 hotels). Another wonderful French person was the lady in the tourist office, so nice! We went to the Castle and to the top of Pic du Jour (mountain in Lourdes). The views were soooooo incredible. Pyrennees mountains, WOW! And I now have a desire to actually "mountain" bike. (crazy French boys). The Sanctuary was really nice (check French off my list of Masses in other languages). Got to see where Mary appeared and got some holy water, woot! We had a delicious meal of French bread and brie (super cheap and wonderful). On Sunday morning we did the Stations of the Cross, life-size and up/down a hill. And we saw the underground Basilica, very cool.
The trip ended on a slightly different note, mostly the only bus from Irun to Santander was at 915 at night, but such is the cost of going on a French adventure. On the up side, I had some delicious pastries in Irun!
Hello, March! With March comes busy weekends and even more exciting travels. . . Salamanca here I come!