Miércoles 25 octubre 2006

Wednesday I had my first cooking class and it was AWESOME! We learned how to make gazpacho (with these great little fried balls of the extra stuff that you put in like crackers), paella, and tarta de Santiago. Four people help the people cook the food while the rest of the group looks on, and then everyone eats the deliciousness. It was really, really wonderful. If anyone would like the recipes, I’m planning to translate them (if I can) and I can send them to you if you request them via comments.

Viernes 27 octubre 2006
So I mentioned in the entry where I got my haircut that I’ve lost a lot of weight (and it seems to continue to fall away from me). This meant that basically none of my pants continue to fit me (they’re pretty much all at least a size too big). I’ve been putting off buying new pants because even though I know I need them, I really just wanted to keep my old pants because I really like them. But Friday it got a little too ridiculous. I can pull off pretty much all of my old pants without undoing them at all and even my belt was in need of two new holes. So I went pants-shopping. It was traumatizing. First of all, I don’t like most of the Spanish styles of pants (because a lot of them are pre-distressed/worn and the styles just aren’t what I would normally pick). I also had to try on like eight million pairs just to figure out what size I am now (turns out I’m about a six). One of the stores I went to had different sizes for jeans and normal pants so that even further complicated things. After 2.5 hours of looking, I’d successfully found two pairs of pants that I liked and that fit me well. That means I have 3 pairs of pants that I can actually wear (I still had one pair that kind of fits because they were a little small when I came).

Sabado 28 octubre 2006
Saturday, Julia Rose Kimball (sorry, I felt like using her entire name) came to visit me from Paris. She was on vacation at the time and traveling around a lot. She arrived early Saturday morning and we began our tour of the city. We started off by visiting the Parque de Buen Retiro, which I’ve mentioned in earlier entries. The weather was unbelievably nice so the walk through the park was great. After that, we went to the Museo del Prado. I’d already seen it but Julia had been reading about some of the artists for her art history class in Paris and was excited to see them in real life. After that, we went to Sol to eat and walk around a little bit. From Sol, we did the big walk over to the Plaza Mayor and the Palace before going back and napping for a while (we’d had to wake up early and she’d been on a train all night). That night, we went out with a couple of my friends to a bar/club that’s like a block from my house. It was pretty fun, but we didn’t last all night like we planned to.

Domingo 29 octubre 2006
It was probably for the best that we didn’t make it until the morning because we woke up early to go to the Rastro instead. This experience was much more positive (and I took pictures). Afterwards, we hightailed it over to the Ermita de San Antonio de la Florida, a beautiful little church with some of the most impressive frescos I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Seriously, they were amazing. I snuck some illegal photos (I do that a lot, don’t I) to share with you guys, which I’ll put in the space next to Friday because they’ll fit there. Seriously though, amazing. (Don’t worry family; you’re definitely visiting there when you come.) After that, we went to lunch at this great little restaurant right next door to the church that had old fashioned dining and delicious food. It’s pretty much all chicken and salad with hard apple cider, but it was wonderful. You get a whole chicken, a big thing of salad, a bottle of cider, and two things of break for about 14 euro (if I remember correctly) and the atmosphere was great. I’m definitely planning to go back at some point with people. After that, we walked back to the main part of town and I showed Julia the other approach to the Palace, the exterior of Plaza Mayor (interesting because the houses are wider at the bottom than the top to support the weight of the plaza), and all of that. We chilled in Plaza Mayor for a while before we went to have some chocolate con churros for snack. We went to a place that was wonderfully typical, but the food was so filling it made me a little sick so we went home to sleep it off until it was dinner time.

Lunes 30 octubre de 2006
Monday, I unfortunately had class and was forced to abandon Julia to her own devices. After my classes were over, we met up to go to the Reina Sofia (which I’ve mentioned before). I stayed with her for a very short period of time before I had to go to my art class, where I finally finished my second drawing. I don’t think it’s quite as impressive as my first, but judge for yourselves. (Drawing picture coming soon, sorry for the delay).

Martes 31 octubre de 2006
Tuesday was Halloween. Now, the Spanish don’t celebrate Halloween like we Americans do, but they did ok. They all seemed like they had seen the same bad teen movie about the festivities and got their ideas for costumes from there. The two most popular were definitely Devil and Vampire, and you often saw groups of people dressed as the same thing. I went as a hippie (because I had the clothes) and had a great time. I made my own flower crown out of real daisies in Plaza Mayor while talking to these two wonderful old Spanish women. I gave away my remaining flowers to children I saw walking around. For the night part, I finally made the trip to El Kapital-the huge, multi-story dance club in Madrid. There was a cheesy but kind of fun haunted house and lots of dancing. Eventually, I gave up and went home to bed, but not before having a great time with my friends. We gave the night bus a shot and everything worked out ok.

Miércoles 18 octubre 2006

Wednesday I had my first exam for my Language class. I think it went alright but we still haven’t gotten it back (to my knowledge) so I don’t know for sure.

Jueves 19 octubre 2006

Thursday, I went to the Museo del Traje near Complutense, the largest Spanish university. The Museo del Traje is a museum on the history of fashion in Spain and has a lot of really interesting examples of fashion through the ages. Unfortunately, photography is not permitted in the actual gallery part of the museum so I have no photographs of the amazing collection. There is a smaller part associated with the museum that is more hands-on. You can try on things like bustles, ruffs, and corsets (all done with Velcro and not anything more…sturdy). The picture to the left is one of me trying things on. It also had some interesting information on the process of making dye, which colors come from which objects, and the differences between fabrics. I really wish I had been allowed to take pictures of the collection because that was the most interesting part but, oh well.

Viernes 20 octubre 2006

Friday I went with a group of my friends from the program for Korean food for lunch, which I had never tried before. It was really very tasty (not that I’m surprised). It’s funny to me how much more adventurous I’m being with my food here that I am when I’m at home but I supposed it’s not that strange. After lunch, I went with Aniela to get her haircut and decided to get mine cut at the same time. It was a rather terrifying experience since I wasn’t really sure what I wanted as long as it was still long but it turned out great! I actually like it more and more basically every day. It’s layered and angled towards my face and just not quite as long. It’s really much more stylish that the uniform length I had before and it brings out the natural curl in my hair. I chose this picture because it also shows how much weight I’ve lost (although the pounds continue to fall off of me).

Sabado 21 octubre 2006

Saturday I finally got to take the trip I’ve been waiting for since junior year of high school when I got sick the day we went. We went to visit Toledo, which was the first capital of Spain. The city itself is gorgeous, surrounded on three sides by the river Tajo and still walled in the old part. Toledo is especially interesting because it is a mix of the three religions of Spain-Christianity (of course), Judaism, and Islam.

We started off by going to La Sinagoga de Santa María la Blanca. (Yes, a synagogue named after the Virgin Mary). It was originally a synagogue but when all the Jews were expelled from Spain, it (along with one other synagogue) was converted into a church. There is only one Star of David in the entire monument but it conserved the separation of the women (on the top floor) from the men.

Next, we went to the Iglesia de Santo Tomé. It was a tiny church but famous because it houses El Greco’s most famous work-El entierro del Conde Orgaz. Pictures were technically against the rules but I snuck a couple anyway because the painting is so interesting that I really felt it should be seen by you guys (and because I wanted it). It reminded me of AP Euro when I wrote a paper on El Greco.

After that, we continued on to the cathedral (do you see a pattern?). The cathedral was pretty but I must admit that it really wasn’t that special-mostly like every other cathedral I’ve seen. It did have some pretty amazing frescos in the part off to the side and it is where all of the Spanish Archbishops are buried (Toledo is where they work too).

Our final stop before we were set free for lunch and a little bit of shopping was La Mezquita del Cristo de la Luz (yes, a mosque named after Jesus). Like the Synagogue we had visited earlier, when the Muslims were expelled from Spain, the mosque was converted to a church, complete with a fresco of Jesus (I never thought I’d see Jesus in a mosque but I was wrong!). Supposedly it had some beautiful gardens too but they were blocked off because they’re doing restoration work there.

After that, we had some free time to have lunch. Margaret and I went to this great Italian place with lots of atmosphere. The food was definitely worth it (we’d had to wait a while). After that, we did some quick shopping before meeting back up with the group. We continued on to a amazing viewpoint where you could really see the whole city (see the picture at the beginning of this day’s section).

After that, we went to a damascene and sword workshop. It was really cool to actually be able to see how the damascene jewelry is made, especially since we were watching a master craftsman. Unfortunately, since we were there on a Saturday we didn’t get to see any sword making but it was still really interesting. Toledo is where most of the swords from famous Hollywood movies (including but not limited to Lord of the Rings) are made so it was pretty cool to get to see a workshop like that.

Domingo 22 octubre 2006

On Sunday, I finally made it to the Rastro-the giant flea market that takes over an entire neighborhood in Madrid every Sunday. They really do sell everything there if you take the time to look. Unfortunately, it’s also a good place to get pick-pocketed because there are so many people in such a small area. I was one of the unlucky people who lost something to the mysteries of the rastro-my cell phone. Other than that though, it was a pretty interesting experience.

Lunes 23 octubre 2006

Monday, I replaced my cell phone because you really can’t be without one here in Madrid. I had hoped to be able to get my old number back but so far it just hasn’t worked out.

Martes 24 octubre 2006

Tuesday, I went to a shop that specializes in Flamenco gear to buy the shoes I needed for my class. It was really cool to see the variety of stuff-from skirt and shoes to shawls, fans, and hairpieces- that was offered there. I bought the cheapest shoes available because I’m really only using them for the class (although I might use them as regular shoes at some point in the future).

So the past three weeks are going to be posted in 3 chunks followed by the entry on my excursion to Paris taking place this afternoon. I hope you're all having an awesome time whereever you may be, I know I am!

Ok, so this post was going to be awesome and really long because for the last three weeks even though I've been neglecting the blog I've been keeping a list of everything I've been doing but my computer officially hates me and, after I closed the sticky note where I was keeping my list, it decided to freeze Firebox and not allow me to recover my post. So I'm going to do the best I can but I really have a bad feeling about this unfortunately (meaning I'm pretty sure I'm going to miss things that I wanted to talk about). Also, the entries will probably increase in length as I get closer to the present because I remember that stuff a little bit better. I haven't been posting much because I can tell that very few people read this thing and so I don't have much motivation to. If you do read this, please take the 2 seconds to comment on it, even if it’s generic, just so I have some idea of who's actually interested in what I'm doing and I can try to cater more towards what they're interested in. Also, some of the links today will be to pages in Spanish. Sorry, they’re just interesting so I put them up even though most of you don’t speak or read Spanish.

Miércoles 11 octubre 2006
So Wednesday was mostly uneventful other than the Erasmus party that night. Erasmus is the European Union exchange program and they have lots of activities like parties, trips, workshops, etc. They have both Spanish Erasmus alums and current foreign Erasmus members, and anyone else who’s a college student here. The party itself was pretty fun, good music and lots of people. We got there a little early by Spanish standards, and the place was mostly empty but by the time we left the bar was filled to brimming with people. We then had the experience of taking the Buho Metro home. I believe I’ve mentioned Buhos in the past but they’re the night buses here in Madrid. Most run out of Plaza de Cibeles but there are some that follow the metro routes, which are the ones I like best (because they’re so easy and usually not as full).

Jueves 12 octubre 2006
The next day was the Spanish equivalent of Columbus Day, Hispanic Day or National Day. This meant no school and a military parade which I accidentally slept through. I wandered around a little during the day and, in the afternoon, I went with Margaret to the Botanic Gardens. She hadn’t visited yet even though I had, but I was really glad I went back because there was a section I had missed the first time around. It was filled with Bonsai trees and it was amazing! I took lots of pictures so I recommend you check out my flickr set to get an idea of the variety (I didn’t take pictures of all of them though). Unfortunately in terms of flowers, it was a little later in the season so there weren’t as many. Regardless, it was a pretty good trip.

Viernes 13 octubre 2006
Friday, the Albellas left for Pamplona to visit Pepa’s mother (Pepa had been gone all week but the rest of the family left after lunch on Friday). Because they were planning to be gone the whole weekend, I figured it would be a good opportunity to cook a little bit on Saturday night for a few of my friends. To that end, I checked out Taste of America, the American grocery store that really just had dry foods and canned foods as opposed to what I needed, but they did have ginger ale which I’d been craving the past couple days. After that, I went to the Corte Ingles for the rest of the food. Corte Ingles is the Spanish one stop shopping center, literally. They have everything. I’m convinced you can buy children there if you look hard enough. (OK, not really, but you get the point.) In the end we found everything but buttermilk but I had looked up how to make it online earlier so it didn’t really matter. Margaret had gone with me and after we finished the shopping we went home and baked some cornbread!! It actually turned out really well. After the cornbread was finished, I went to meet Avery for dinner. I met Avery in the laundry room in Santiago. She’s studying in Madrid with the Colgate program which used to be connected with the Vassar Wesleyan program. We went to this great contemporary Spanish restaurant called La Finca de Susanna. It’s pretty cheap for really good food at a nice restaurant. Unfortunately though, we had to wait an hour for the table so we decided to wander around the area (right by Sol) for a while. Dinner was delicious but we couldn’t hang out for too long afterwards because I had agreed to work on Saturday.

Sabado 14 octubre 2006
Saturday, I worked at Biblioketa most of the day. A few days earlier, Lola, one of the women who run the store called me to warn me to come up with an idea for a workshop. I decided to teach a very basic lesson on the writing of fairy tales since I wasn’t sure how good the kids would be at English given that they’re only 6-8 years old. In the end, though, no one showed up for that part of the day, maybe because it was a holiday weekend. After work, I hurried home so I could meet my friends and we could get started on dinner. I actually ran into them on the metro on the way from work to my house. When we got there, we made a delicious black bean chili-mac and ate that delicious cornbread I had made the day before. Dinner came out really well and it was generally just a very nice night. After my friends left, I made cookies for the Albellas. They turned out perfectly!

Lunes 16 octubre 2006
Nothing too much happened on Sunday but on Monday I had my art class again. I finally finished the drawing I was working on. You can see it to the left of today. I’m really proud of the way it turned out. The shading to me looks really realistic and it looks mostly like the actual teapot. It seemed to take forever to finish, but in the end it was worth it. I think the drawing class is really helping and it’s making me feel more creative/want to draw more often.

Martes 17 octubre 2006
Tuesday I finally started the remainder of my classes. These are the only classes I have with actual Spaniards instead of exclusively foreign students. My first new class is Literatura y Pensamiento (Literature and thought). It’s going to be a pretty hard class because we’re reading really difficult texts: The Odyssey, The Divine Comedy, and Gulliver’s Travels. I’ve included the links to the wikipedia articles on them because I’m not sure who knows anything about them or not. The professor is really nice though and it seems like it should be a good class. My other new class is the Anthropology of Flamenco. It’s a really fun class that combines the history with the dance so we learn a little bit of everything. The first day we watched a movie about all the different styles of flamenco and then we learned a couple of the basic steps. The only problem with my flamenco class is that it doesn’t end until 10 and it takes about an hour to get back home so I’m always starving by the time I reach the apartment.

So I've been putting this entry off because, to be honest, I've been pretty busy for the most part and know it's going to take a long time to write-so it's going to be organized by days for the most part. Also, sorry for the update to the appearance of my blog (for those of you who liked the old one) but I want to give this a try because it's a little wider and I think it may help with some of the spacing issues I've had with putting pictures on the side in the past. (I'm really not a big fan of the pictures before I write about them thing.) So bear with me and at least look at some of the pictures from this whole week and a half. I've also included links to various flickr set scattered through the entry-they're because I've seen so many interesting things and I'm trying not to overload on the pictures although I think my final count is somewhere around 13 pictures in the entry. You should look at the ones that most interest you and since I visited so many Gaudi places, if that is what really interests you, check it out with the previous link. Also, I hope you all appreciate my hard work on this entry-it took over 3 hours to write with all the picture uploading and the fighting with the internet connection.

viernes 29 septiembre, 2006

On Friday, I decided to go for a walk through the Parque del Buen Retiro, the Madrilenan version of central park. Like central park, it's absolutely huge and there's no way one could see the whole thing on the same day without truly dedicating a whole day to exploring it. It is pretty great fun and has a lot of beautiful areas.




My favorite part was the rose garden at the very back of the park which surprised me by still having a profusion of roses blooming, despite the fact that it was the end of September (I always thought roses were a spring/early summer thing).







One of the most famous parts of the Retiro is the Palacio de Cristal modeled after the British Crystal Palace. It's rather beautiful but, let me tell you, it can be hard to get a really great picture of it.





sabado 30 de septiembre, 2006

On Saturday, I decided to give in and do the thing I never really wanted to because it seemed cruel and unusual-I went to a bull fight. I ended up cry for approximately the first half (not non-stop but fairly often) because I knew that no matter how well the bull did it was going to be killed in the end. Also because it really isn't a fair fight-they weaken the bull to a state where it's already having trouble standing up (sometimes) before forcing it to fight until they stab it, sometimes multiple times, in the back. The final move is that it's spinal cord is severed with a small knife and then the knife is WIPED OFF ON THE DEAD BULL'S SIDE. The only thing that made the bull fight even a little ok for me was knowing that the bulls are treated like kings before they're sentenced to death. All pictures I have from the corrode de torso (the Spanish name for bull fight) are thanks to Aaron Naar because I was in too much of a hurry to get there and forgot to bring my camera >.<

Sunday and Monday nothing much exciting happened. At least, I don't remember anything happening so I'm going to have to assume that nothing exciting happened. If anyone remembers what I did, let me know and I'll add it!

martes 2 de octubre 2006

Tuesdays are my day with the least classes for now (although that's going to change very soon) so I arranged with Lan to go for Mexican food (!) which I have been craving desperately for weeks. Unfortunately Lan forgot that she was going to be missing her photography class and wanted to make it up by going to a different one, so I went to Mexican on my own. It was great. The food was pretty good and it was so nice to eat something with even a little bit of spice.

Afterwards, I went to the Real Jardin Botanico to keep myself occupied for the afternoon. I took 126 pictures there (I highly recommend you look at my flickr which is the link you get if you click 126 pictures). I know, I went a little crazy but it was just so beautiful and there were so many flowers and plants and great things. I saw STRAWBERRIES! Now I KNOW that strawberries are supposed to fruit in the summer and it was OCTOBER! I couldn't believe it. There were also tomatoes, peppers, squashes, and lots more things that surprised me.

I loved the way the garden was laid out and could definitely have spent more time there but I had agreed to meet Lan for a movie. We went to see Vete de Mi which could have been a decent movie if it had had an ending. I think I've mostly decided that Spanish film is not right for me and I should stick to American movies (I'm not sure if that extends to Latin American film or not). The one Spanish movie I do recommend you see is Volver which I mentioned in a previous post.

miercoles 4 de octubre 2006

On Wednesday, I finally actually signed up for drawing classes. I had been wanting to take lessons at a study that was fairly close to my house (only 2 metro stops away) but it appears as though it has closed because they didn't respond to my email and their phone number no longer works. So I decided to take classes at a place called El Estudio, right down the street from the Prado. It's actually really easy to get to-I only have to take a bus straight down the street next to my house. I normally have classes on Mondays from 5:30-7:30. After signing up for my class, I decided to visit the Prado because it's so close to the studio and I haven't been their yet. Since I was only spending a minimum of time there, I decided to stick to the Spanish greats: El Greco, Velazquez, and Goya.

jueves 5 de octubre 2006

Thursday was my first day of drawing class and it was tough. First of all, the technique they want us to use is different from everything I've been exposed to before but it seems to be fairly effective (I've seen what the other people have been creating and it's pretty darn impressive). The paper is vertical, like a canvas, in an easel and the charcoal is not held like a pencil but rather rested on the first three fingers of your dominant hand and held in place with your thumb. This gives you a much wider range of motion and actually makes it pretty easy to draw straight lines. The first day, all I did was draw a wine bottle and a glass on one page and a teapot (short but not stout, thanks Mom!) on another. By the end of class my tricep was quite tired and I think this is going to help me get into even better shape than I'm already getting into (I've lost a fair amount of weight I think).

viernes 6 de octubre 2006

On Friday, we woke up at an ungodly hour and met at the train station at 6:45! It was still dark everywhere at that point and I was one of the first two people to arrive. We finally boarded the train and started off on our excursion to BARCELONA! The one good thing about waking up so early is that I got to see the sunrise which never happens (unless its from the other end and then its rare and usually unwelcome). The train ride is a little over 5 hours and after I took lots of pictures of the sunrise, I slept the rest of the way.

When we got to Barcelona, we lunched in the train station and Mihai (the program director)'s wife Ann had her purse stolen while eating lunch. They cancelled everything quickly and we boarded a bus for a four hour bus tour. I must say, the bus tour would have been better the next day rather than pretty much right after we got off of a five hour+ train ride but it was still pretty cool. We started by going through the city and seeing a lot of the stuff left over from the World's Fairs that were held there two separate years. After that, we went up to the top of Montjuic, one of the mountains just out side of the city. It was beautiful and we could see everything-the entirety of the city, the harbor, the Mediterranean-it was great. There were a bunch of wild cats running around and one was stalking the birds. We then drove around the city for way too long and finally made it to the dormhotel where we stayed. It was really nice-all the rooms had their own bathroom, a sitting room, a balcony a kitchenette, and a bedroom with two beds.

We went out with some monitores like we've had in Madrid and Santiago-they took us to a seafood place for dinner and I tried a varied of seafood dishes (not the shrimp with the eyes and legs though, that was just too much) but I did like one of the kinds of seafood. Unfortunately, I was never really clear on what it was called-something along the lines of chipurones, but I'm really not sure. Afterwards we went to a bar that used to be a furniture store-it was really chill and fun to hang out it. The last thing of the night was basically a strip of bars with a variety of types of music and settings. It was a lot of fun but eventually we went home because we had to get up early the next morning.

sabado 7 de octubre 2006

Saturday, I woke up early to make egg and cheese sandwiches with a couple of the other people in the group in one of the kitchenettes. After breakfast, we all went to visit La Sagrada Familia. La Sagrada Familia is a church designed by the famous architect Antoni Gaudi. Gaudi has a lot of projects in Barcelona (and you'll see most of them in this section of the blog entry). La Sagrada Familia is his most famous project. Started in 1883, the church has still not been completed and probably won't be for another 30-40 years (according to our tour guide). Its amazing to see how much has been done and know how much has left to be done. Given that Gaudi died in 1923, the project has been continued, essentially following his original design, by other architects entirely funded by donations-not by the Catholic church itself. I took lots of pictures (especially of some of the small details) and you should check out my flickr stream to see the rest. It used to be that you could climb the stairs or take the elevator to the top of some of the towers, but the stairs have been taken out of commission since someone almost died of a heart attack on them. The line for the elevator was at least an hour long and cost 2 euros, so our group decided against going up.


Instead, we went to a Thai/Japanese restaurant for lunch. It was delicious (we've been doing a fair amount of ethnic food lately because there's only so much tapas you can handle before you long for the variety of the US). After that, we went over to Parc Guell, another of Gaudi's famous achievements. If you've ever seen any Gaudi, it was probably either la Sagrada Familia or the salamander fountain in Parc Guell. The thing the park is really famous for, though, is the huge serpentine bench that snakes around the upper terrace. It is the longest bench in the world. (The first link links to wikipedia, the second to flickr).

We finished at the park a little later than we should have and since the rest of the group didn't want to climb back up the hill, we went to the metro station that was 1.5 km away from the entrance to the park. We took the metro one stop when it stopped for an extended period of time and we were told to get off. We ended up being about 20 minutes late meeting the rest of the group (10 minutes our fault, the rest the metro) and had to RUN (literally) to meet that before going into La Pedrera or Casa Mila (La Pedrera links to wikipedia, Casa Mila to flickr). La Pedrera is another Gaudi monument, this time an apartment building. It houses four apartments and is open to the public with an audiotour. Its a beautiful building but the roof is definitely the highlight.

After that, Lan, Margaret and I hit up another of Gaudi's famous houses, Casa Batllo. Casa Batllo is supposed designed to represent Saint George fighting the Dragon and is a beautiful example of modernist architecture. Gaudi's style prevails throughout, from the terrace on the first floor and the stained glass in the main parlor, to the chimneys on the roof (see flickr). The house is beautifully colored with tiles and the roof is amazing-I wish there was an easy way for me to upload the panoramic video I have of the roof, but I can't figure out how to do that. We had to hightail it back to our dorm afterwards to go out with our monitores again. This time we went to a Senegali restaurant and it was GREAT! The food was a little spicy but amazingly tasty. We had some really awesome gelato afterwards too (I had peach and pineapple).

domingo 8 de octubre 2006

Sunday we were supposed to go for a bike tour through the gothic section of Barcelona, but somehow everything got all confused and the bike shop thought we were coming on Monday so there was another group that was supposed to be there on Sunday and they only had enough bikes for one of the groups so we went on a walking tour instead. Our guide seemed pretty knowledgeable, if not really loud enough, and had a lot of interesting information to share with us. My two favorite stops were this little church in the gothic/romantic style only square (I can't remember the name for the life of me) and the Cathedral. The cathedral was beautiful even if the facade was covered in scaffolding. Outside of the cathedral, some really awesome local music and dancing was going on-nothing like flamenco but more like the big Greek circle dances where they do the grapevine. I didn't join in but I did appreciate the beauty of folk dance and I always love folk music. After the tour, we went back to the dormhotel and grabbed our stuff before heading to the train station and hopping the train back to Madrid.

lunes 9 de octubre 2006

Monday I had my two classes but I had to miss the first because the train stopped at one station and made us wait 30 minutes at the station, which meant I was going to be almost 30 minutes late which is literally half the class. I just couldn't bring myself to come in with only half of the class left-so I had to just miss it. I had my second art class and the first one at the appropriate time. I spent the entire time working on the shading for my teapot drawing, and by shading I mean making the background true black using a combination of charcoal, pastels, and my pencil and a LOT of blending with my felt. At the end my hands were black to the second knuckle but I must say it really did help. The next lesson I'll work more on shading the actual teapot to give it the curve. I really think these lessons are going to help because I've seen what some of the other people are doing-one girl drew a Greek tablet thingy that was so realistic I actually thought it WAS 3-D at first (it took me a couple of minutes to realize that it wasn't.

martes 10 de octubre 2006

Today, the train screwed me again but fortunately only by 15 minutes and I called one of my friends to have her make excuses for me to the professor even though it turned out to be unnecessary because...she was on the same train!! I'm going to have to start taking the bus or leaving extra extra early (I was especially annoyed today because I left 15 minutes earlier than usual in case something similar to yesterday happened but obviously I didn't leave enough time so we'll try even earlier tomorrow and if it happens again I'm taking the bus for a while). After class I came back and hung around here for a while before taking an awesome nap (the weekend and the week before it were a little sleep deprived due to all of the activities) and writing this blog entry (which ended up taking about three and a half hours at least). So I hope you've all enjoyed reading about the last week and a half's exploits!

Que os descanseis mejor que yo!

Ok everyone, sorry I haven't written in almost two weeks, I know that it's kind of typical and I've probably lost some of my readership ~.^ but I wanted to wait until I had new photos to upload. I guess I'll start by talking about my classes. First of all, it takes me about an hour to commute to school. I have to cross a huge street to get to the metro station that takes either two or three lights to get across (the first picture above). I was right and my classes are really interesting. I have the same professor for my language class as I have for my coloquial Spanish class and she's great. She's very enthusiastic and very helpful on a lot of the little stuff. Both classes have so far been very helpful-I'm already using a lot of the stuff we're learning in coloquial and the stuff we're learning in language is really easy to apply to everyday conversation. According to most of the Spaniards I know, I'm really improving in my speaking ability, but I don't really notice it-in fact, to me it feels like the opposite. My other class, the Spanish theater class, is pretty challenging because right now we're reading the Spanish equivalent of Shakespeare, Lope de Vega, which is written entirely in verse and old Spanish (from the Siglo de Oro, golden century). Its pretty hard to read, but the class illuminates it so much. Its taught by this short old man who wears a lot of black and wire-framed glasses, exactly as you'd expect. He's a lot of fun and gets really into what we're reading.
Last week was fairly quiet. I was fighting that cough for the whole week, and towards the end it evolved into a cold too, but I'm mostly healthy now. On Friday night, I went over to Pepa (the monitora)'s house to watch La princesa prometida or The Princess Bride with some girls from the program and some of Pepa's friends. I must say I enjoyed the movie immensely and I thought it was great to see in Spanish. Afterwards, we went out to a couple of clubs playing American rock music-the first obscure music from the sixties and the second a more ecclectic collection of American music. I had to leave fairly early because the next day I started work at Biblioketa, and it was great! I really enjoy working there and I think it's going to help expand my horizons in terms of children's lit. I was able to make some helpful recommendations and worked in both Spanish and English, which was nice. Saturday night was "La Noche en Blanco," a coloquial expression meaning "The night without sleep." It was amazing because there were as many people out on the streets at 2am as there usually are at 2pm. It was a special event where most of the museums and other cultural centers were open until the wee hours of the morning. I really wish I had brough my camera, but I didn't so the above image is stolen from Kim's Facebook album. The whole thing was pretty amazing and I suggest you check out the link above for more info about everything that was going on. I didn't get to do too much though because all of the lines were really long, but I did see a contemporary photography exhibit and a lot of the street art. It was a quite the experience, I must admit. On Sunday, I went with a group of people to see the Cuban National Ballet company perform Swan Lake and it was absolutely gorgeous. The dancing and the costumes were both first rate. I thought the woman who played Odette/Odile did a wonderful job and the prince was rather dashing.

This week hasn't been too busy-I spent a lot of it fighting off that cold I mentioned and going to class of course. On Tuesday, though, Lan and I went to the the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, a beautiful museum filled with art from the middle ages on. My favorite was the room with 19th century American paintings-they made me kind of homesick for the changing colors of fall. After that, we walked all the way from there back to my house so I could give her a book and show her my room (above, I know, ITS SO CLEAN!). We then went to observe a dance class because I'm thinking about taking some kind of dance while I'm here (and I think I've decided on salsa to compliment the flamenco I'll be learning). Other than that, I really haven't done much so far this week. Tomorrow, I'm going to try to sign up for art classes-probably drawing although I was originally thinking painting because if you can draw it makes it easier to paint, don't you think? The picture below are the family I'm living with. None of them like to have their pictures taken and Tano was especially reluctant because he didn't really get to sleep last night because of a big deal he was working on. Tano (the Dad)Pepa (the Mom) Isabel (age 18)Sebastian (age 15)Elisa (age 13)

Bueno, chicos. Un abrazo muy fuerte!!

Hello all, (note, I have made some minor changes to the first paragraph since I first posted this entry and added wikipedia links to some of the references I make)
Sorry for not writing in a week but there really hasn't been all that much to write about. This week was mostly filled with orientation and the like-nothing too exciting except that we took our language placement tests and more or less chose our classes (with some wiggle room). I'm in Lengua Superior A, which unfortunately meets on Mondays and Wednesdays (there was another class I really wanted to take then. I'm also planning on taking Spanish Theater and Colloquial Spanish in the hopes that I'll understand what people are saying on the streets more. Its also supposed to teach you the "language of youth." I'll also be taking a few smaller courses that don't meet as often. Tuesday I had a interview with Gema, a woman who owns the second best children's book store I've ever seen. It has books in English, French, and Spanish from birth to 12+. It has all of my favorite authors and most of my favorite books (although I was disappointed to learn that although she had The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, she did not have The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, which I feel is a must for every book collection). I saw two movies: La Noche de los Girasoles (Wednesday night) and Volver (Friday evening). The first was not very enjoyable-very dark and kind of hard to follow (it jumped around a lot) but the cinematography was beautiful. The second was great! It starred Penelope Cruz and had a funny and interesting story. On Thursday, the group went to see a zarzuela. Zarzuela is the classic Spanish theater type. Its a cross between an operetta and Spanish music. The one we saw was called La Revoltosa. It was a little hard to follow because the singing was operetic and the dialogue had a lot of colloquial expressions, but the costumes were beautiful and the dancing was fun. I also went to the Reina Sofia, the modern art musuem here in Madrid on Friday. They have a special exhibit now called "Picasso: Tradicion y Vanguardia" which is the title of the class I wanted to take and now can't. I love going to the Reina Sofia because it not only has a fairly large collection of Picasso but it also has a great collection of Salvador Dali and Joan Miro. (I've included an image of one of his most famous paintings for those of you who are unfamiliar with his work. Its kind of fun.)
Yesterday we went to Segovia, a small town approximately an hour drive from Madrid. It was an adorable little town and a really great trip. We started by going to La Iglesia de la Vera Cruz (the church of the true cross) just outside of the city. The church is special because it is unlike most other churches built around the same time (most of them take the form of the cross). The Iglesia de la Vera Cruz takes the form of a dodecagon (12 sided figure for those of you who have forgotten geometry). There's a lot of mystery surround the church like who built it and why (there's some speculation that it was the Knights of Templar, like in the DaVinci Code, but they really just have no idea).
After that, we went back to the center of the city and walked over to see the Aqueduct. They told us a lot of statistics about the height and length of the aqueduct (its pretty massive) but I can't remember them. I'll just say that it's pretty impressive. Right around the base of the aqueduct they were holding a Celto-Iberic Festival to celebrate the town's heritage. According to the tour guide, these festivals are held every year and usually have different themes to them-this one talked about the methods of war in that time. We then continued our walk to go up by the amazing Gothic cathedral. Although we didn't actually go in, it was an impressive sight to see and kind of awe inspiring given it's massive size.
The coolest part of the day was by far our trip to the Segovian Alcazar, the castle that inspired Walt Disney's Cinderella's castle. It was amazing and I recommend you look at my Flickr to get the full impact of some it because I'm couldn't pick which photos I wanted to upload with this. The one I did pick is the King's Room, which was used for all sorts of official events, including feasts and the like. The people around the top are former kings (and queens!) of Castille (the region where Segovia is situated). Each person has an explanation of who s/he were and why s/he was notable. You can see part of the ceiling. The ceilings were actually one of the coolest feature of the castle because they're so intricately done and almost all of them are guilded.

After that, we went to lunch (we were starving). Every time we do a formal "lunch" they fill us up with way way too many appetizers and a lot of wine. By the time the food comes out, most people barely have room to eat it all (although some people of course do). We tried the specialty of the region, cochinillo, or suckling pig. It was kind of disturbing because some people got legs (including the feet) and others (including me) got parts with brands and hair(because the skin was left on). My piece also had a large portion of a spine, gross. After we ate the pig, we had the typical Segovian dessert which was absolutely delicious. I'm not sure what it was made of but according to some people it tasted a little like pumpkin pie and it was covered in a great Marzipan frosting. We then had some free time to walk around the city before we loaded back into the bus and headed back to Madrid.

Last night, I went out with my friends to some bars and finally to a disco, all in Chueca (the gay neighborhood). It was a lot of fun and the music was at times great and at times awful. The only part that suck was that right before I left for the night, I got burned by a cigarette. I'm not talking about my clothes, I'm talking about my skin. Fortunately it isn't a very big burn but I do have two itty-bitty blisters thanks to it. I finally went home around 4:30 after the adventure of taking the night bus (Buho). I've been fighting a cough all week and the hours spent in smokey locations really didn't help. But I did have a good time.

Os echo de menos.