Me echo de menos el Sur...en cualquier pais

Sevilla

I just got back today from Sevilla, Spain, which is in the province Andalucía in the south. It is completely different than the part of Spain where I live. It’s more Mediterranean/tropical with a different kind of people and way of life. I’ve already said the accent is very different, which is true. They cut off a lot of letters of the ends of there words and from the middle, and it’s hard to understand what words someone has said when half of the consonants are gone. Anyway, Paco (the Spanish boy that lives with me) and my señora told me that they couldn’t understand andalucians either, so then I didn’t feel so bad.

The people are definitely of a different sort – very outgoing and talkative, which is a little unusual for Spain and Europe in general. In places like Salamanca and especially Madrid the people are really nice, but they don’t generally talk to you unless you approach them first or they know you, but in Sevilla we were randomly approached many times about different things. One time we were sitting on a bench and all of sudden the old man beside us told Austin that I was really pretty and started talking to him about me while I was sitting there. The old man eventually took a moment to inform me that he thought I was pretty, but then just continued talking to Austin as if that is just what I was, a topic of conversation between men. It was a perfect example of the stereotypical Spanish machismo – first of all he assumed that I was Austin’s “woman” and then he just talked about me like I was an object of interest. Of course that is not to say that all Spanish men think like that, it’s just a stereotype, but all stereotypes stem from some sort of truth I suppose.

It actually happened the following day when Austin and I were in the Plaza Mayor in Salamanca sitting on a bench…again. Another old man came up to us and stood in front of us, really close because all of the people in Spain stand close to each other. He just started telling us how Salamanca was the greatest city in the world and that they were the best in arts, language, and culture…and he just went on and on and on. Then he would stop talking and there would be this awkward silence and we expected him to leave like any normal person would have done, but he never did, he just kept repeating his whole spiel about Salamanca. He informed us that he was the pontifical something of the university, which was a complete lie because I asked Veronica later (the Spanish girl I meet with every week) and whatever position he told us he had didn’t exist in the university. Eventually I took initiative and told him that we had to leave to go study. It was so strange because he was 83 years old and I don’t have any clue why he would approach us and make up all this stuff…anyway, back to Sevilla.

We visited the Plaza España and it was the most impressive plaza I have seen thus far. It was bordered by scenes of all the major cities in Spain made of ceramic tiles, so I took pictures of all of the ones that I’ve visited/will visit. There is a huge fountain in the middle and bridges made with ceramic leading to the center of the plaza. It’s boring to explain, but I will put pictures up eventually so you can see it.

We also got to see a Flamenco show, which is a type of dancing that is very characteristic of Spain, especially the gypsies of Spain who historically danced flamenco to make their living. Now it’s part of the industry of tourism and it’s not just for the gypsies I don’t think, but there are still some that dance in the streets for money. The actual dance is so distinctively Spanish, I’ve never seen anything like it. The dresses that the women wear are colorful and tight and very big and frilly at the bottom. The dance starts out almost sad where the dancers have solemn expressions and move very slowly and then all of a sudden they go crazy with tap dancing and twisting and turning. I enjoyed the male dancers the most (in both Sevilla and Granada) because their movements were the sharpest and the strongest, which surprised me because I didn’t know that men danced flamenco. It is definitely distinctive from anything that I’ve ever experienced before.

I not only fulfilled Spanish stereotypes this weekend, but universal ones as well. I had roasted chestnuts from a street vendor! (Like the Christmas song) I didn’t know this, but there will be plenty more opportunity to eat castañas asadas because it is now the season for them in Salamanca as well. It’s so romantically European to have hot roasted chestnuts while walking around the city. Oh, what’s more is that there were gazillions of horses with carriages for the tourists, which was even that much more romantic. Sometimes I still feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven.

11.15.07

One of the things I’ve missed but didn’t realize until I went to Sevilla and Granada was green – trees, plants, flowers, grass. Granada was not that much different from Sevilla, warm and tropical, but it did have a taste of African culture that Sevilla didn’t have.
I missed the trip to Morrocco, but we went shopping in the African quarter of the town and I almost felt like I was there (minus the sand dunes).

This was the first organized ISA trip that we had a significant amount of free time to wander around on our own. Rachel’s (a friend from my program) best friend is studying in Granada, so it was nice to have all that free time for her to show us the city from a peer’s point of view. The great thing about Granada is that almost all of the bars serve free tapas if you go and buy a drink, so the first night we went out for tapas a.k.a. bar hopping that included dinner and not spending a lot of money.

The organized activities included visiting the Alhambra which is an Arabic/Islamic structure in Granada. It’s so huge that the tour lasted three hours, but it was really interesting, especially because we had a good guide. One thing I’ve learned about monumental tours is that it all depends on the guide. Anyway, the Alhambra is very decorative with poems in Arabic inscribed on the walls, and it has courtyards with lavish gardens and reflecting pools…it was all very different from the occidental (western/Christian) structures that we have seen so far. Also, it is on top of a hill, so it looks over Granada which is “the white city” or something like that because ALL of the houses are painted white. There is a reason for that but I don’t remember, but it makes for a pretty picture.

¡Cuánto tiempo!

I know it´s been a LONG time since I have written a blog, but hang in there, more are coming. I have actually already written about my trips to Sevilla and Granada, and now I´m working on Paris. The thing is that it is raining in Salamanca right now and I can´t take my computer out in the rain in order to post the blogs that I have saved.

I want to wish everybody a HAPPY THANKSGIVING! Be thankful for the turkey because it is so hard to come by in Spain, and there is a good chance that my thanksgiving dinner with my program will be turkey-less. I hope that everyone has a great time and eats till they pop!
¡Buen Aprovecha! Bon Appetit! And more or less Arkansas style...Good eatin´!

Viajes Buenos

3.11.07

Pues, I have a few things to catch up on…last weekend I visited Ciudad Rodrigo and Sierra de Francia with my program and this weekend I went to Sevilla. Really, besides my weekend trips there is not much to tell because everyday is more or less the same. I’m doing pretty well with Spanish, I can keep up my side of a conversation. I did get frustrated this weekend because the accent in southern Spain is a LOT different than the one here in central Spain, but then the Spanish guy who is living with us informed me that he couldn’t understand it either so then I didn’t feel so bad.

So I suppose I will start with what I can remember of Ciudad Rodrigo and Sierra de Francia. Both of these places are in the region of Salamanca which is also the region where my city is (logically since both are called Salamanca, I just didn’t want you to mix the city and the region up). The trip overall wasn’t one of the most amazing ones, but it was definitely worth going on. My favorite part was probably the Peña de Francia which is a church on top of a very tall mountain. The scenery was unbelievable, which I know I say about every place we go, but it’s always true. So of course the church is a Catholic one, but what is a little different about it is that the Virgin Mary within it is black. It’s not that weird because there are other black virgins, for example, the Virgin of Guadalupe. I can’t really remember the significance, which is horrible, but that’s one thing that distinguishes this church from others, in addition to it looking over the mountains and valleys of Spain. So anyway, we kissed the robe of the virgin because it’s supposed to be good luck and that was about all there was of that.

I also enjoyed the cathedral that we saw, as always. It was a little different than the other cathedrals I’ve seen, though, in that it was more gothic style than baroque. Also, half of the courtyard was built in one century and the other half was built two centuries later and both had very distinct styles. It exemplified some of what I learned in Art History in high school, and it’s always nice when something you learned in class turns out useful because it doesn’t happen very often.

We also saw some little pueblos, or neighborhoods I guess, that seemed almost untouched by the rest of the world. They are teeny little communities that have conserved their particular way of life and haven’t been overrun (for lack of a better word) with tourists and international peoples. Which isn’t to say that either is bad or good, it’s just another look at the culture of different parts of Spain.

So overall it was a good trip, though not as impressive as the others (with the exception of the Pena de Francia, I've never seen anything like that). I am looking forward to visiting Granada this weekend, which is in the same region as Sevilla but this time I'm going with my program.
Hasta luego...

Oporto: Donde siempre subimos

10.15.07

Oporto is the city of port wine and is also the city where everywhere you walk is up! If I hadn’t eaten so many sweets, I probably would have lost weight from walking uphill so much (not that I need to, the sweets are so worth every calorie in Europe!) I went with Austin and Rachel, both from my program, and it was the first trip I’ve taken with a small group. We took the bus this time which was SO much better than the train. I didn’t have to sleep with people that I didn’t know on the bus because I had my own seat. And this was the first trip that I actually was able to sleep en route.

Aver, about Oporto (I think in English it’s Porto). It is the second largest city in Portugal and one of the most visited, but it is still not as touristy as the other major European cities. The first day we were there, we visited the Museum of Photography and the Museum of Contemporary Art. Both were hit and miss with actual artistic talent, I’m not sure that I agree with todo el mundo about what exactly constitutes art. But we’ll save my opinions for another day…it was interesting nonetheless. We also visited a big cathedral the first day. Most of the churches I have seen so far in Portugal and Spain have been super-baroque style, and this one was no exception. There was shining gilded bronze everywhere and it’s so busy that you can’t ever tell what is going on (with the decorations that is.) I wouldn’t want to decorate my place como así, but I always love to look at it because it’s so detailed and beautiful in its own way. There is also a lot of ceramic on the facades of churches and other buildings, which is something I’ve never seen before. It’s really pretty because usually it’s blue and white and contrasts so much with the sandy brown color of the rest of the building.

The second day we climbed the tower at the Igreja dos Clérigos (Portuguese for Church of the Clergymen). It is the tallest tower in Portugal and we climbed all 225 steps to the top. The sight was definitely worth how sore my legs were the next day! We explored the city a little after that because we reserved the day for wine-tasting, but we didn’t really want to start too early. So we studied up on port first at the Museum of Port Wine. It’s lucky that I made it there because I almost got run over by a car who was driving on the sidewalk! And it’s not like Spain where the streets and the sidewalks are the same thing, there was definitely a clear difference between the two and he definitely was driving faster on the sidewalk than the cars were on the street. Don’t worry, I’m all fine and good, although I know plenty of words now in plenty of languages that I wouldn’t have minded telling the driver if I’d had the chance.

So then we went across the river to the tastings. I’m going to start at the end and work my way back…the last one we went to was Sandeman. I learned the most there, but it was the most touristy and had the least personality. The one before that we all enjoyed because it was more personal. There were only a few of us on the tour and we could ask questions and have more of a conversation rather than a lecture like at Sandeman (we took all the tours in Spanish I might add, and the Spanish people that we took a tour with told us we spoke very well). In both tours, they took us through the cellars that had barrels upon barrels of wine. One of the barrels of wine in the first tour was from 1885 which makes it 122 years old – not the wine, just the barrel. I won’t bore you with the process of port wine-making, but feel free to ask if you want to know, because I know all about it now! We took those tours on Saturday, but our actual first wine-tasting was Friday at a little house converted into a port shop called Casa da Mariquinhas. This one was my favorite because it was just the three of us – Austin, Rachel, and I – and the host and we talked a long time with her, not just about wine, but about a lot of things. The best part was this; usually when you are a tourist, the tour guides give you a choice on which language you want to take the tour in. All of them speak at least Portuguese, English, and Spanish. It was the same with the guide at Casa da Mariquinhas, but when she asked us which language we spoke, we gave her the choice of Spanish or English and she chose Spanish because that was easiest for her. It’s pretty cool to not be the “chooser” for once. We enjoyed that so much that we went back on Saturday and bought some wine/liquor from her. I got a small bottle of Ginja, which is cherry liquor and it’s really tasty.

Saturday night was the best and the worst time of our trip. First, we weren’t really sure where we were supposed to catch the bus back to Salamanca because when we arrived the bus driver let us off on some random street, not at the bus station. So when we started researching it, we could not find any indication on websites or our bus tickets about where to catch the bus, so we were freaking out for like half an hour. The worst was that one of the guys that runs the hostel was trying to help us, but at first he told us our bus stop was a bar, then he said he didn’t know, and then he basically told us that we were just going to have to take our chances with either the bar, bus station, or the airport which was 45 minutes away. After our crisis, we went to eat at a “barbecue” place. It wasn’t quite barbecue, but it was the best chicken I’ve had in a long time. Between the three of us we shared two full chickens, Austin and I each had our own gargantuan plates of french fries, and Rachel had her tomato salad. It was a ridiculous amount of food, but it was ridiculously good as well, so we ate every last bite. The next morning we went to the stop where the bus let us off the first time, which we had decided the night before that it was the best thing to do. We were right and we arrived safely back in Salamanca seven hours later without having to find another way home.

Another thing worth mentioning is that there were a few times that we encountered people who could only speak Portuguese to us, and between the three of us we could actually pick up on what they were trying to tell us. We could also read the Portuguese signs and simple stuff like that pretty easily because the language is really close to Spanish. Entonces, three languages down and many more to go…haha I wish.

Coming up next weekend: Ciudad Rodrigo and Sierra de Francia…

Disculpame...I know it's been a while

10.8.07

I have finally met a Spanish person my age! (Besides the one who lives with me and is introverted, so I only speak to him at meals) My program sets people up with “intercambios” which is a meeting between two people who want to learn each other’s languages. I had my first intercambio today with a girl named Veronica. She is my age (which is lucky because some people are paired with 30-year-olds) and she studies philology, which apparently is the study of different languages. I didn’t know that until today because we talked about what our areas of study were in Spanish and for the longest time I thought she was talking about philosophy and finally she had to tell me in English that she doesn’t study philosophy, but philology. A little embarrassing, but priceless. So she is fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, and English and is now working on Korean. ¡Dios Mío! She speaks English so well and she’s never studied in an English speaking country before. It amazes me. I’m so excited though, we will meet every week and she told me that my friends and I could go out with her and her friends because we don’t have any Spanish friends yet, which makes it really hard to learn to speak colloquial Spanish rather than like a Spanish teacher or something. Granted, we’ve barely had the opportunity to make Spanish friends because they just started school a week ago.

10.11.07

Besides my first intercambio, I’ve had a couple of other fun experiences this week. First, I had an interview in Spanish for a job teaching little kids English. I didn’t get the job – there were only 4 open spots and the whole English-speaking population of Salamanca applied (which is a lot) because they were offering 30 euros per hour! Whew, that’s like 50 bucks an hour. It was a really good experience none-the-less, because I actually did something really practical in Spanish.
Though I didn’t get that job, I did teach kids English today. A woman stopped Gina on the street one day and asked if she could teach her kids English for 30 minutes a week. So now she does that every Thursday, but she couldn’t do it today, so I filled in for her. The kids are so cute, they are 4 and 6, so we are just teaching them colors and numbers and simple things like that in English. The hardest part for me was changing my accent all the time from Spanish to English. And accepting the fact that they are barely out of their toddler years and can speak faster than me. ¡Madre mía!