I finally finished writing about Spain

And since it took me so long just to type it up, you get no pictures. Check my Facebook albums.


October 2-7

Girona

Since they're within an hour and a half drive from each other, we stayed in Girona and drove into Barcelona a couple different days.

We stayed at this quaint hotel; I roomed with Rebekah and Katherine and we had a bedroom, a bathroom, and a kitchen (which was good, because we were responsible for all our own meals)

I loved the streets in Girona, at least up in the northern portion of the city, the "old city." The buildings, of course, add to the effect. Tall, four to seven story buildings with flower boxes in every window; cobbled streets and sidewalks (which make it hard to remember that cars actually do go down them); cathedrals and churches reaching to the sky. It almost doesn't even feel like a city at all, or even a town. I can't quite grasp how it feels. Well, when you look right above you, you see all the tops of the buildings because they're so close together. Everything lends itself to a sort of "theme park" feel, though not in the touristy sense; it's more of the feeling of being enclosed, but not trapped. It's not unwelcome or given to producing anxiety; it's just the way it is. I almost want to describe it as being in rat cage or something, although that does sort of give it a negative connotation and I do not mean it in a bad way at all. Most of the time it's rather cool and shady because the sun doesn't reach most parts of the streets. The stores are "hole in the wall" style, with tin doors that pull down when they close up and usually have some graffiti sprinkled on the outside of the door. I think another thing that makes it feel so enclosed is the low volume level. I would expect it to be a lot louder, echo-y even; but there really isn't much noise. A lot of people ride motorcycles or Vespa-type vehicles; there are whole parking lots of them.

The first chance for a characteristically Spanish experience: siesta. Basically, this happens between about 2 or 3 until 5 and it means that most shops are closed and there are fewer people on the streets. A couple times during this trip I actually even took a nap during this time. I love the idea of siesta and I think it enriched the experience. I wish America would take a chill pill and think about slowing down for a couple hours like a lot of Spain does.

Trying to get by on the little Spanish I do know was interesting, especially when really, most of the signs are actually in Catalán, not Spanish. Catalán is a language that is kind of like a mix between Spanish and French and that's what they speak a lot of in Catalonia, which is where Girona is in Spain.

One of my favorite parts about Girona was the old city wall. My "moment" was one afternoon when Katherine, Rebekah, and I got gelato (which was amazing at this particular place) and walked up through the ruins of the wall, overgrown with vines and trees, up stairs and more stairs to get to the first lookout tower. It started to sprinkle and the clouds spread themselves out over the city, which we could see splayed out below us as we ascended higher and higher. Oh, while we were up there I also threw chocolate gelato all over my face; I suppose that's what I get for dancing (just ask me what happened... or I bet Rebekah could tell the story better).

Oh - another awesome thing: Faith called me one night! It was great to hear some of what was going on back in Abilene.

Barcelona

Three notable things about what I did in Barcelona:

1) Fat Tire Bike Tour - so much fun! Even though I haven't ridden a bike in years, I eventually got the hang of it (somewhat) again. It was awesome to be riding on the streets of Barcelona. Imagine a horde of 24 bicyclists (we split our group in half) riding on the street of a big, busy city, and on the "sidewalk" at times... kind of annoying right? Well, all the pedestrians and cars annoyed us too, so there. hah! Anyway, our tour guide, Buster, was really cool. He looked like he just stepped off the page of a skate magazine from California but he actually happened to be from London.

2) While most of our group went to the FC Barcelona game ("soccer"), a group of 10 of us stayed in the city for the night. We split off further while trying to decide what to eat, and I ended up eating a whole pizza at this delicious pizza place. But, really, there's nothing to do in Barcelona at night except eat and drink. Hm.

3) Sagrada Familia - the most amazing piece of architecture I have ever seen. Gaudi is so creative and it just blows my mind. It's a big church that's still under construction and it has been for over 100 years. It would be so cool to go back and see it if it gets finished in my lifetime. Inside you feel like you're in a monstrous cavern, with ornate, odd, and interesting ceilings. The view from the top of the towers was cool (have I mentioned I love aerial views? Like, a lot.)

I got another awesome phone call one night from Ashley! :)


October 7-10

Granada

The hotel we stayed at in Granada was pretty nice. We got delicious all-you-can-eat breakfasts everyday.

The Alhambra was beautiful. The palace was ornate, but the Generalife, the gardens, was the hugest most pleasant garden ever. The beauty of the palace, I thought, was mostly in the belief that Muslims hold that they're not allowed to portray God in any kind of image they make, so the decorations were these intricate carvings on the walls of parts of the Koran and its imagery. It was amazing because almost every wall was covered at least partly with them.

Did you know that vanilla ice cream and chocolate ice cream have two different textures? Well, I found that out one night when we ate dinner, since I couldn't taste because I had a cold. Vanilla is very smooth, but chocolate has a very slightly grittier texture... Almost like you can feel the cocoa powder.

Funny thing - I got lost. Yeah.. Hah... It was one of those situations where you know where you are, but not really... Like, you know how to get back to the place where you know where you are. I was walking and was just too curious, I guess, because I kept walking because I remembered how to get back to where I knew where I was. Turned out, my curiosity got the best of me and I ended up going to far to remember how to get back. I did find a grocery store though, and I bought the cutest jar of Nutella (it had a Spanish cartoon painted on the side). All the time I was walking I was thinking how to phrase in Spanish a question about how to get to the square where our hotel was located. Fortunately, I came across a city map with a "You Are Here" sticker on it, and was able to navigate my way back to the hotel safely.


October 10-13

Toledo

We just stopped in Toledo en route to Getafe (a suburb of Madrid where we stayed). Basically, it's a tourist trap. Lots of stores selling earrings and daggers and swords. The museum I wanted to look in was closed (go figure) and the Alcazar (castle) was also closed. Oh, and their famous marzipan sweets were gross. Fortunately we were only here for a few hours. The best part about Toledo was driving there from Granada; rolling through the mountains covered with olive trees is a surreal experience because it lasted for over an hour... and for a while after we left Toledo and continued on to Getafe. I felt peace.

Getafe

Nothing much to say about Getafe, seeing as we were only here to sleep in the hotel and buy groceries from the store around the corner. The most exciting part about Getafe was the first night at the hotel. Rebekah, Katherine, Meghan, Holly, and I were all sitting out in the hallway (our rooms were all on the same hall) when all of a sudden, from around the corner comes a group of about 4 or 5 Spanish guys, probably around our age. When they saw us they started whistling and talking to us but we just jumped up and ran into Rebekah and Katherine's room. A few seconds later we heard a frightening sound: a knock at the door! It was them. But we didn't open the door. So, from that night on, we always asked who was at the door before we opened it.

Madrid

1) City walking tour in the rain with no umbrellas

2) Reina Sofia (museum): a lot of modern and abstract art, not really all that interesting to me, but still fun. We also saw a lot of Picasso, Dali, and Miro.

3) Prado (museum): absolutely ginormous! Here, my favorite painting was called The Garden of Earthly Delights; it's actually a triptych. It depicts the Garden of Eden on the left; everyone else in the world enjoying worldly pleasures, each with a piece of fruit symbolizing sin and temptation, in the middle; and on the right is a dark and destroyed earth, overrun by death and sin. It's very detailed and pretty big and I really could have spent a long time in front of it. Other great paintings by El Greco were another favorite from this museum.

4) Immanuel Baptist Church: the most diverse church I have ever attended. It's an international English-speaking church and there were people there from several countries and a wide range of ages. It is fairly small but not tiny. Emily and I talked to the associate pastor afterwards and he told us that many times people from other countries will come to this church and then take the message home.

5) Spanish-speaking countries parade: the most disorganized parade I have ever seen in my life, but I guess that's how they do it there. The crowd basically mobbed the performers.


October 13-16

Avila

We stayed in the Residencia at the Monasterio de Santo Tomas, which was really cool, partly because they fed us amazingly, especially lunch that first day. During our stay here we took a city tour with a guy who runs a language school that teaches Spanish, English, and German. We also happened to be staying in this city during the feast day of St. Teresa of Avila, so that meant that all sorts of celebrations were under way.

We went to Catholic Mass one morning and the cathedral was kind of funny because there were TV monitors sprinkled throughout it; such a clash of the centuries. The first of the songs that were sung was the most beautiful and haunting and irreproducible song I have ever heard. I can't even bring it to mind (I couldn't even remember how it went a second after it ended). I felt like God was massaging my insides. I reveled in the pure beauty of the melody.

The bullfight we watched was interesting. I saw 6 bulls die; more than that, they were murdered. There were mostly older people there, since a lot of younger people are against it (reasonably so). It's strangely interesting and I couldn't tear my eyes away, for the most part. After the death of the first bull and the taunting done to the second, I was kind of desensitized to it.

We had the best ending to our two weeks in Spain: the most amazing fireworks show I have ever seen, not because of the amount, but because of how well-executed and unique the display was. They were fired off the top of the old city wall. My favorite part was the waterfall of fireworks flowing over the side of the gate in the wall.

Definitely before even this point I was ready to go home. We were all ready to go home, back to Oxford. Two weeks is a really long time to be away from a place held so dear. It was a different experience traveling around with everybody, all 36 students and 5 teachers. It was like all we had was each other, and I laughed to myself that we had everything that meant anything to us on this travel break whenever we all rode around in a coach.

Spain: The Best and Worst of It

So, in order to quickly update y'all and give you a taste of my real blog entries to come about my past two weeks in Spain, I made a couple of lists of the best and worst things I experienced there. I tried to put them in numerical order, but it was really hard... so the numbers don't quite adequately reflect their rankings.

In Avila on our last night

Top 10 Best Things About My Spanish Experience
10. The bullfight: although the death of 6 innocent bulls is hardly my favorite thing, the whole thing is a strange experience that, overall, I enjoyed, though I never want to go to one again.
9. There were so many pastries of all kinds, sweet and savory, and gelato was delicious and just about on every corner.
8. The bike tour we took in Barcelona was absolutely awesome despite my lack of dexterity on a bicycle.
7. Not having to resort to my backup raspberry flapjack as a fill-in meal.
6. Climbing the ruins of the wall in Girona with Katherine and Rebekah while eating the best gelato I’ve ever had… as the clouds started to sprinkle rain on us.
5. All the little curly-haired, blonde kids speaking Spanish (and even the ones who weren’t blonde and curly-haired… but they were the cutest).
4. Seeing The Garden of Earthly Delights triptych painting by Bosch in the Prado.
3. Wandering around and up in the bizarre Sagrada Familia (Temple of the Sacred Family by Gaudi).
2. The olive tree groves that we drove through for over an hour while traveling from Granada to Toledo and Getafe.
1. The last night… fireworks in Avila.

Cigarette butts and graffiti

Top (Bottom) 10 Worst Things About My Spanish Experience
10. Having 4 hours to spare in Barcelona at night when all there really is to do is eat and drink.
9. Getting lost by myself in Granada (but hey, I look at the bright side sometimes: I stumbled upon a grocery store and bought Nutella with a Spanish cartoon on the jar!)
8. Many of the streets and sidewalks are cobbled, which looks cool but is killer on the ankles; plus, you can't tell where the sidewalk ends and where the street begins so you’re always dodging cars.
7. Creepy Spanish guys in the hotel who whistle at you and then knock on the door.
6. Well, this is only a bad thing for technical reasons, and if you don't speak any form of Spanish, or at least, in my case, have trouble understanding Castilian Spanish: the fact that most people don't speak (much) English.
5. There is graffiti on almost every wall unless it's some sort of monument or semi-important building.
4. People smoke cigarettes and cigars like chimneys, slowly killing themselves and everyone else.
3. One word and place: Toledo.
2. Spanish shops keep rather random hours.
1. Having to watch your bag constantly because of pickpockets.