Get a Grip Granada

Hola, 

I am sorry I haven’t written in a while but I couldn’t justify sending an email after an email of not traveling and relaxing so I decided I would wait until I ventured to a new city. Alas I have two weekends to catch you up on now, one in Oviedo and one in the southern city of Granada. Let’s begin with the previous weekend. After Salamanca and Madrid our wallets were begging for a break so we decided we would take a relaxing weekend off to explore more of Asturias and Oviedo. 

But before I get into my weekend let me start with Monday. I had gotten an email from my conversation partner Javier who had been emailing me. Obviously my friends and I had made up elaborate schemes about how he was going to be so attractive and become my Spanish love. The day came to meet up at a certain statue and he emailed me that he would be wearing glasses and a striped shirt, intriguing right. I am standing next to the statue scooping out every man with glasses and stripes; there are surprisingly a lot, until I feast my eyes on a large, balding, man barreling towards me. My Javier. Out of breath we dos besosed and were off to a café to get to know each other. Javier is a 29 year old math student, hoping to be a professor, who attends class in Oviedo, lives in a small town outside of Oviedo, and works in Gijon, another city outside of Oviedo. That’s a lot of driving every day. He is interested in improving his English so we decided we would spend our Monday evening speaking half Spanish half English. Javier is hilarious, he lives at home with his parents, common here, and has incredibly funny stories to share. I am so happy he is my partner, I love talking to my host mom but it is nicer to have a younger person, especially a boy since I never get to practice talking to men since I don’t have a padre. We chatted for an hour and a half getting to know each other and him giving me advice on fully utilizing my time in Oviedo, I look forward to my meeting with jolly javie every week. Wednesday night was ladies night and four of us girls enjoyed playing games and listening to music in the park. We had a translation test on Thursday we were not in the best shape for the next day but I still manage to pull a B, imagine how good I will be when I actually start studying. Thursday night we were out with our contact partners and enjoyed hitting up the club scene and dancing and singing. 

Friday after class it was a beautiful day and after a week of rain and Spanish homework, or lack of, and we decided to visit the beach in Gijon a city on the coast just thirty minutes north. We were getting hilarious stares in our flip flops and shorts, and we understood why when the wind picked up and the sun went down. We had a great time on the beach though playing beach volleyball and lounging by the ocean. I never would have imagined I would be sitting on a beach in Spain in February. After the beach we were a little hungry and in the mood for a taste of home and had to stop at McDonalds. Traveling here is a lot different than in camp when you are paid and have access to an American grocery store and people are use to traveling hard core and cheaply. We have a few more spoiled first timers who get $300 from mommy and daddy every week, so resisting the spending urge has become a lot more challenging. We were home in time for dinner then met up again that night to hit up the town and dance. We played traditional American games in the park like flippy cup and beer pong. I would like to say that for never playing flippy cup I was second place.

The next morning after waking up late and eating lunch we met at parque invierno, a park across town near some mountains, with the full intention of going on a hike. Instead we lay in the grass and basked in the sun talking and laughing for a few hours in our exercise clothes. We went out again Saturday night, if you aren’t out on the town you are sitting in your house alone on the weekend. We decided to hang out at sidra street for a while then three girls and I went to an Irish pub and play cards before calling it quits. The next morning my friend Megan and I met up to go to mass at eleven in the same church I attended a few weeks ago with the children’s choir. It was cold as always but I actually was able to make out some of the reading and homily. After mass Amparo and I had a nice long lunch and chat then I met up with Carrie for some standard cards and colacoa.

This brings us up to this last week, see above would have been a waste. Javier and I met on Monday again, he showed me typical Spanish beer, tasted disgusting and we talked for an hour about soccer, I now know far more than I ever cared to about the dirty Italian defense. Wednesday was a very interesting day. My friend Corinne had been talking about getting a tattoo here because they have a studio called, pardon my language, fuck ink, and she wants to be able to say she got a tattoo in Spain at fuck ink. So she had gone in last week to look at their designs and have them draw up la vida bella, the beautiful life, to put on her rib cage. We all went in to look at her sketch up and the guy offered to do it right then and there. She bravely said yes and had four girls holding her hand as the Spanish tattoo artist cracked jokes and kept repeating, “I’m fucking good.” After the random tattoo experience we went to a chino store, a dollar store run by Chinese people, there are a million and a half of them, to buy colored paper for our valentines celebration on Thursday, with our contact partners. They were making envelops and we were to write valentines for everyone in the group in Spanish then we would read them and pick our favorite from our envelope and read them to the group. Then Luna and Paula would decide who had the best and there would be a prize. I take prizes very seriously so I was ready to go dictionary in hand. We bought paper and headed back to the school cafeteria to write. We decided that we wanted to make dirty Spanish valentines and thus the laughter and inappropriateness began. Often we would simply put a phrase like I want to drive a school bus with you, and then add the word naked to the end. We also had to have alter egos to make them anonymous so I signed all my Enrique Iglesias.

Thursday night came and it was time for the competition. I am proud to say Enrique Iglesias took first place, with Carrie and Hanna, or should I say meow and Pedro, with the promise of a chocolate massage, riding horses naked, and being lovers. It was a really funny activity and people got extremely creative. We learned that you asking people if they want to go to the party in your pants in English does not logically translate in Spanish and it was hilarious when they asked us what we meant by “Quieres ir a una fiesta en mis pantalones?” After our game we hit up the bar street and enjoyed a bar called Metropolis where they played American music and we danced and sang the night away.

Friday night we met at the bus station and boarded at 7:30 p.m. we arrived in Madrid at 1 a.m. and switched buses and arrived in Granada at 6:30 a.m. I have a friend from junior high, Eric Fjare, who is studying in Granada and he agreed to call us on Saturday night and take us out on the town since he has been living there for a month and a half. So we arrive in Granada early and can’t check into our hostel until 9 a.m. We sat in the bus station cafeteria till eight thirty eating toasted bocodillo ham and cheese sandwiches and playing cards. At eight thirty we decided we would figure out how to bus to our hostel. I was without a map this weekend, relying solely on Rick Stevens book hand drawn maps so we got on a tried to find down town, we were told the bus would be a twenty minute ride to the city center, but after twenty minutes we found ourselves through the city and in the mountains on the opposite side. So we got off and got on another bus going back to the city center. We found our stop the second time around and wandered a bit till we found our hostel Macktub Adventure Guesthouse tucked away on a side street. This hostel looked legitimate online and was only 16 Euro so we weren’t too picky. The receptionists were not excited to see us at 9:30 in the morning and couldn’t figure out why we were so early, they were trying to write down my passport information and I am pretty sure they were still drunk from the night before. We were told we wouldn’t be able to get into our rooms till later that afternoon since checkout was at eleven so we changed in the office and left our bags behind the counter. The hostel, for all of its sketchiness was pretty cool. It was run by four friends who live there for free and their only job is the care and maintenance of the place. It had an old staircase that led up to four flights of rooms all of which had old furniture and old time photos on the wall. Also there was a string attached to the lock of the door that ran up the length of the stair case so you could pull on it and open the door from any level, pretty useful.

So we packed up our day bags and we were off to find the Alhambra, the main sight of Granada and almost one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The Alhambra is the last Moorish palace and stronghold from the Christian Reconquista in Spain. They remained in power over Granada until 1492, and then fell to the Christians. The palace is full of gardens and ornate palaces with stucco, plaster stalactite, and color, there are also amazing views of the city and water (fountains, ponds, etc.) everywhere. So we walked to the Alhambra, up a very steep mountain that it sits on top of and wandered a long ways to the ticket office. The way tickets work is you buy a 12 Euro pass into the Alhambra then on your ticket you are given a specific time to visit the Palacios Nazaries. We arrive around ten thirty and our palace ticket wasn’t till one so we knew we had a lot of time and needed to go slow and savor it. Our first area of visit was the General life gardens. This is where the sultan had his vegetable garden during the summer time. It reminded me a lot of Alice and wonderland with high bushes with carved out tunnels to walk through. There were also a ton of fountains and water staircases, with water running down the side and the middle. This was our first view of Granada from the top and the white buildings and surrounding mountains were stunning. Next we wandered into Charles V’s palace area. Here there was a huge Christian, ornate church that had been built after the Reconquista and Charles V’s was the conquering king. This area had a lot of gift shops and café’s also. The next area was the Alcazaba or the fort region. This is where the 2,000 Muslims living in the Alhambra were defended during battle. We had fun climbing the towers and enjoying many more views of the town and mountains.

Finally it was one, we were all pretty loopy and tired from the trip so everything was funny, and it was time to head into the palace. We were literally falling asleep on each other in line and ready for our hostel nap after this palace trip. The Palacios Nazaries was the Moorish royal palace. The place was beautiful and full of carved wooden ceilings, stucco stalactites, ceramic tiles, and molded wall plasters. There were also a ton of open courtyards and fountains for sun bathing, the sultans use to lay there on large pillows smoking hookah. The Quran forbids figural images in decoration so all of the plaster decorations were patterns or words from the Quran. One of the most important or most famous rooms in the palace is the courtyard of the lions. This fountain was a gift from the Jewish leader and the twelve lions represented the twelve tribes of Israel. Unfortunately the lion fountain is under restoration but we were able to look at these famous lions in a side room under high security.

That basically concluded our tour of the Alhambra and we next headed back into town in search of a grocery store to buy lunch, we hadn’t eaten since seven a.m. We headed back to our hostel and took a two hour nap in a freezing cold room, I was literally wearing socks on my hands then woke back up around seven and decided to do a bit more exploring. We wandered around down town Granada and marveling at how many college kids were out and how many people spoke English, Granada has a population of 300,000 people without college students and 400,000 with, so there are a lot of students. After getting lost we finally made it back to our hostel around nine and Eric called asking if we wanted to meet up at eleven. We got dressed and decided that we wanted to hit up a hookah bar before we met up with them. Granada is as far south as they come and has a huge Moroccan influence. There are a ton of Moroccan shops and hookah bars everywhere. We found a place right next to our hostel to enjoy a multi-fruit hookah experience. Hookah is simply tobacco smoked through a bong like apparatus with a long hose. I have smoked hookah in the past but nothing as strong as this stuff. We were running late so I picked up Eric and his friend Leland and brought them back to the bar. We finished and enjoyed some catching up then headed off with them for a night on the town. We ended up in this cool cave club near our hostel and were up dancing till six a.m. I believe the European transformation is almost complete. We crawled into our hostel bed at six thirty and were up three hours later packing our stuff up and heading off to Church.

The Cathedral in Granada is the second largest in Spain and is basically a huge white ice box. The cathedral was freezing as always and contained hardly any paintings or designs. Mass was easier to understand, and after we settled for some shopping and eating. I purchased a hookah for very cheap from a man, so we can all try it when I get home. We got back on the bus at two p.m. and arrived in Oviedo at 2 a.m. it is now safe to say I hate buses.

Though it was a long weekend of traveling it was very worth it and I have a lot of fond memories of Granada. Eric was a great tour guide of the city and the Alhambra was gorgeous. On Wednesday Carrie and I are leaving for a four day trip to London to visit my friend Megan Furey who is studying abroad there, I am very excited, I’ll keep an eye out for Harry Potter. Pictures can be found at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=336874&id=563560128&l=d394402730

I hope you all have a great rest of the week and I can’t wait to tell you all about London!

Tal lluego, Elizabeth

This week list of things I learned:

1.      Key fights are just as common as knife fights.

2.      People live with their parents till they’re thirtyL.

3.      As my Spanish gets better my common English skills get worse.

4.      Spaniard don’t have big foot or the boogie man, instead children fear witches flying in their room, evil mermaid on the ocean, and a forest monster who steals all the water.

5.      There is such thing as umbrella etiquette, never hold it in the center.

6.      Hooded sweatshirts are few and far between.

7.      Q-tips have two parts, a fat cotton ball with a smaller cotton ball sticking off it.

8.      Spaniards don’t use trashcans but a plastic bag in your bedroom.

9.      Every window has a heavy duty set of blinds that will keep all lights out allowing you to sleep all day; they are literally plastic panels that lower down over the glass.

10.  Children here are far more spoiled than in the U.S.

The oldest university in Spain

Salamanca, 

Can you believe it is already February, I can’t and I do not like how quickly my time as a Spaniard is flying by. I left you on Wednesday and as I reflect on the rest of the week days nothing outstanding comes to mind. Thursday was spent buying bus tickets to Salamanca and shopping around/playing cards in the afternoon. That night was our typical fiesta night as a group, we had high hopes to practice the ancient art of Karaoke but unfortunately that dream did not become a reality, but in good time I am sure. Friday morning nine a.m. class is always rough, but luckily I am back in bed enjoying my Spanish siesta by eleven a.m. We discovered a website called project free tv, this website is ruining my life in that I have at my disposal hours and hours of American programming and I no longer need to watch full house and bob esponja, its beginning to take a toll on my sleeping. Amparo woke me for lunch and I spent the afternoon skyping my parents on their 22 wedding anniversary and talking to my madre. Friday night we headed off to the spaceship mall, a huge mall that resembles a launch pad for a rocket, or a giant clam shell, the debate continues. We shopped around for a while and indulged in gelato and burger king French fries, obviously the meal of champions, or grease starved Americans. We had received news that a giant party was going on at the stadium that day, were young people literally party all day and all night so obviously we had to check it out before dinner. I have never seen so many drunken college students in a huge stadium before and it was amazing, the party was in full swing when we arrived around eight and people were beginning to stumble home to dinner. There were boxes of wine and crushed glass everywhere, a huge mosh pit consumed the middle and it was just all around incredible. Unfortunately we missed the party in that after dinner most people head to the bars, but we will be keeping our ears open about more outlandish celebrations in Oviedo. That night I went to bed early in preparation for our Saturday morning 7:30 a.m. departures to Salamanca, people are starting to get very angry about the early morning bus rides. 

I don’t know why six a.m. is always more unpleasant than anticipated but four zombie, sluggish ladies met at the train station ready to get on board and sleep. I thought my chair was broken for the first half of the ride and attempted to sleep sitting straight up, until half way through when Carrie offered to switch me and we discovered that I was simply weak and the chair was more than capable of reclining. It was a five hour bus ride to Salamanca complete with about five stops in other cities to drop off and pick up people. I really enjoy the bus rides through Spain, I have seen some of the most beautiful mountain lake scenery imaginable and watched old stone fences and crumbling churches pass by. There is so much history here and everything feels so ancient. The smaller towns still reveal what I imagine to be a peasant village with sheep in the fields and herders chasing them around with horses and dogs. Also I see many people tending to their small gardens with old fashion ho’s and mending the huge stone walls.  

We arrived in Salamanca around 12:30 and splurged on a taxi ride to our hostel, instead of trying to navigate our way on a map, it was only one euro per person. When we arrived at our hostel, Hotel Reise, the man behind the counter only had reservations for yesterday and said we were not scheduled to stay there Saturday night. Of course everyone gets really quiet and scared and it’s up to Elizabeth to be the demanding American. I told the man I knew for a fact that I had made the reservations for Saturday night and already paid an eight euro down payment on the room, after refusing to move and demanding to see my online reservations we were put up in a lovely room with four beds and a private bathroom. As we unpacked we opened our windows and were surprised to hear traditional music floating in from the streets. It was then I realized I had forgotten my bocadillo on the bus and I was in desperate need for some lunch. We decided to head down and see what source the music was streaming from. We were greeted by many old women dressed in traditional Spanish garb declaring it was the day of the woman, dia de la mujer, and we, as women were welcome to walk with them and join their festivities. We followed them as they sang and danced their way to the main plaza. We made a quick stop into the grocery store to grab our lunch, chips and chocolate, the meal of champions, before we found the Plaza Mayor. In the plaza tons of people were gathered, woman in all sorts of outfits were standing in circles dancing and singing with each other. Each circle group had one man dressed in traditional black clothes that was beating a drum and playing a recorder at the same time, pretty impressive. The women were absolutely adorable to watch they were clapping and stopping and more than happy to pose for pictures. We stayed for a long time at Plaza Mayor just watching and laughing and trying to figure out what the festival was about from the old men smoking cigars and watching from the sidelines, the only thing we were able to conclude was that it was a festival for woman, further research is underway. We decided next to wander the beautiful streets and sandstone building of Salamanca in search of the cathedral.

Things are pretty compact in Salamanca and we were standing in the shadow of its immaculateness in less than ten minutes. I had read in Rick Steves that you could climb to the bell tower of the cathedral for 3.5 Euros so obviously that was our first stop. Italy has given me a lot of church climbing experience so I was prepared for whatever stair situation Spain was prepared to throw at me. The stairs were not numerous but we did get to stop in a bunch of historical rooms, enter the cathedral in the top sections and look down at the interior, and explore the roof top. I am quite proud of my pictures but it isn’t too challenging when every way you look at the church it’s glorious. After spending a lot of time challenging each other in the artistic picture game and fighting pigeons we decided to trek to the old Roman Bridge that crosses the river Tormes. On our way we stopped into a civil war museum, because it was free, and saw some pretty interesting mannequins set up like they use to in secret society meetings. These puppets had on black cloaks then eyes from computer paper taped to their faces, unfortunately the eyes were never even and often space way to far apart. After our boredom in the museum we continued to the river Tormes. In my class intro to Hispanic lit this last semester at UNI we read the famous Spanish story Lazarillo de Tormes and what do you know but right next to the bridge and the river Tormes is a huge statue of Lazarillo and the blind man. We took several pictures to send back to our professor. I have forgotten to mention how beautiful of a day we had in Salamanca, the sun was brightly shinning and we spent the next hour basking it its rays while lying on the ancient roman bridge. It’s set on the outskirts of the old town so we had a great view of the city. 

Eventually we headed back into town and meandered around exploring other churches and monuments. The cathedral opened up for visitors and we spent time on the inside of the beautiful church in awe of its size. Stef, the atheist Jew, was especially impressed. On the outside of the church in the beautiful façade is an astronaut, during a restoration a man thought it would be funny to add an astronaut about twenty years ago and it has become somewhat of a game for people to locate him. Salamanca is a huge university town and the old university buildings, the first in Spain, are everywhere. Christopher Columbus visited here before he sailed to the America for advice from the professors. After poking around in the many university stores and seeing many Universidad de Salamanca sweatshirts and t-shirts we found the main entrance to the university. On the university façade there is a frog located on one of the skull decorations. It is said if a student can locate the frog without help they will succeed in their exams. I cheated and followed the pointing figures of the other thirty people there so we will see how this semester turns out. The frog has become a huge deal there, aka the star of all Salamanca mugs and t-shirts. Next we found the old sandstone public library and the front is covered with shells. 

The sun was setting and we were getting a little sleepy and chilly, siesta time obviously, so we stopped back by the grocery store to pick up some dinner then headed back to our hostel. After enjoying peanut butter sandwiches, chips, bagel bites, and more kinder sopresas it was time for a nap. We awoke around ten, haha great nap right and decided we would play so games in our room before hitting the town later that night. We enjoyed many of Carries crazy card games and talking till about one when we decided we would go see what Salamanca had to offer at night. After wandering for a while and growing more tired we simply concluded we need to go to bed and returned to our hostel. 

We awoke the next morning around nine, Salamanca is great for sleeping apparently, and Stef, the atheist Jew and I headed off for church around ten thirty. We went back to the cathedral and got to sit up front in the gated area as about thirty of us celebrated mass. We had about eight priests at the altar though so the service was beautiful and I was actually able to comprehend some. After mass we met up with the other girls for some last minute shopping, more basking in the sun, then enjoying ice cream at the Ben and Jerry’s bar. My madre texted me again saying she hoped I was having fun, and everyone was jealous again! Our bus departed around two and the bus ride home was more beautiful and fast than the bus ride there. That night my madre and I had a long dinner, she demanded we talk for an hour since she knew I was speaking English all weekend and so we spent time talking politics and how we both didn’t like talking politics but our crazy mothers did. 

All in all Salamanca was a fantastically relaxing, beautiful weekend with great company. Everything was ancient and foreign and made me so proud and excited to be learning this different language. Things I have learned Spanish wise this week include:

1.      Zapatero is the President of Spain, his name means shoemaker.

2.      Fat people do not just exist in the United States.

3.      It just became illegal to smoke in public establishments on the first of January, no one is happy.

4.      Cookies are common place at breakfast.

5.      Bring your own toilet paper to bars!

See my pictures at:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=332784&id=563560128&l=46b03ae7a5

Miss you,

Elizabeth

Madness in Madrid

Another week, another set of Spanish lessons learned. 

Last week consisted of class, card games, chocolate con leche, ladies night, ping meeting pong, and speaking a lot of Spanish. Monday night we decided to hit the town for the first of many weekly ladies nights, we learned the hard way that nothing is opened on Mondays but luckily we were able to find a café bar and drink Moscato, laugh, and share life stories. It goes without saying we are moving ladies night to a more social evening next week. Classes are going well, it’s nice now have relationships with professors and knowing names, also everyone feels comfortable in class and it’s a lot less stressful. I really enjoy my grammar and vocabulary classes the most, they are smaller, about fifteen students and involve a lot of class activities and speaking, not lecture based but interactive. Also this week I received the amazing news that my mother will be embarking on a journey of her own in April to come visit me over my spring break and we will spend two days together in Oviedo until we jet set of to Ireland. So obviously it was a fabulous week. And all this was done with the anticipation of heading to Madrid, Spain’s capital, since we got a day of for Saint Thomas the 

 Aquinas.

So Thursday was really the start of our weekend and was our evening with Luna and Paula our contact partners, they took us to their friends bar where they preceded to flirt with boys and ignore us so a group of us decided to peace out and found our own Irish pub to play cards in and socialize. We socialized far later than was wise for a seven thirty am bus ride that had you out of bed by six am to make it in time. But that lesson will probably continue to go unlearned. The next morning a group of twelve very tired Americans boarded the five hour long bus ride to Madrid. We were divided up into two groups of six staying at two different hostels on the first night, then the other group had booked our same hostel for Saturday night. The bus was pretty uncomfortable but with Sarah’s neck pillow I was able to get a few hours of shut eye. When I feel asleep it was to glorious mountains and a sun slowly rising up over the horizon. When I woke up a while later I was enjoying the central Spanish desert and its unique vegetation and a cloudy sky. When I fell back asleep it was slowly beginning to rain and we were nearing another mountain range. When I woke up again the mountains and plains had been covered in a white blanket and we could not have been more disappointed. Though the snow covered mountains were beautiful I was not prepared for such weather, clothing wise. Luckily when I woke up from a third nap, a fiveish hour bus ride is a long time, we were out of the snow section and just entering chilly, cloudy Madrid. Dodged a bullet there.

We got in around one p.m. and headed into the subway to go to our hostel. I was traveling with a lot of people that had never been out of the US let alone seen a subway before so I enjoyed helping them buy their first tickets and showing them how to read a subway map. After a short ride, only one euro, we were at stop. After a short walk we found Mad Hostel, our home for the next two days. People thought I was some sort of road guru because I was able to guide us without a problem to our hostel, they were disappointed to find out I simply wrote down the directions on the websites. After settling in and checking in we headed to a close supermarket to buy food for the weekend, to save money from the expensive restaurants. Of course peanut butter is scarce here so we settled for a milk chocolate white chocolate swirl spread, bread, tex-mex Doritos (the only Doritos they have here), and more chocolate sopresas. Our hostel is pretty cool it has roof access, but it was too cold to utilize it for more than fifteen minutes and the view consisted of taller buildings, and we had individual lockers in our rooms so no one was scared to leave stuff in our rooms. Rick Steves inspired I had compiled a list of potential things to do in Madrid and we dove right in. Our first stop would be the Temple of Debod.

In 1968 Egypt gave Spain a temple as a gift from the Egyptian government. Franco had help save some major monuments when the Nile river rose and this temple from 200 B.C. was their idea of a thank you. The temple was amazing. It had two large stone archways before the actual temple, which was huge and looked like it could have been filled with booby traps. The two arches are surrounded by a large pool of still water and at the rear of the temple is a huge fountain and a great view of Madrid. The temple was free and you were allowed to take pictures without flash so if you click on the link at the bottom of the email you will be able to see pictures. The temple walls were made of hard sandstone and were the same size of block that makes up the many pyramids. My favorite room was a hall of hieroglyphics, there were pictures of all the hieroglyphics underneath and then descriptions of what they meant. It was really amazing to see ancient history and I couldn’t stop imagining life during that time, plus I felt like Indiana Jones. The temple was full of ruins and hidden rooms and small crawl spaces, it makes me even more excited to visit Egypt with my Aunt one day, in the distant future. After wandering through and taking pictures it was decided that a nap was in order, plus a lot of us were coming down with the flu and not feeling one hundred percent. We walked past the huge royal palace and stopped in a café for colacoa and café con leche. We walked through plaza mayor a famous site and plaza in Madrid and laughed at the many costumed gypsies charging money for pictures. In attendance were Minnie Mouse, Spongebob, a white statue, three heads, a clay man, and a very fat man in a small poor quality spiderman suit. The plaza mayor was constructed in 1619 by Philip III, who has a huge statue of him riding a horse in the middle, this is where they use to put on plays and executed prisoners. By the time we reached our hostel Hanna, Carrie and myself were feeling very under the weather. The rest of the group had headed off for some shopping and we decided we needed to rest up to go out the next day and see more of Madrid. We spent that night playing cards, heading to bed early, and cooking to death in our million degrees room.

The next morning Hanna and I felt right as rain but poor Carrie still couldn’t stomach anything. We headed downstairs for our free breakfast of hot chocolate, orange juice, and croissants. After an unfulfilling meal we packed up and headed out for the Palacio Real (royal palace.) We arrived around eleven to a large line, but the weather was warmer and we had the amazing sounds of gypsy accordion players and men playing the music glasses to keep us company. These artists mean business here, they all sell their own CDs and the music glass guys play classic songs on cups of water, it was really impressive. Finally we made it into the palace and thanks to our international student cards we were able to knock our admission price down from eight euro to 3.50, score. The palace is huge and home to over 2,000 rooms. The royal family no longer resides there, they have a different giant mansion down the road, but the palace is still used for special events and parties. For some basic fun history about the palace, it was built in the 18^th century when an important fortress burnt down. It was commissioned by Philip V who was French and built it to model Versailles. His wife was very Italian though so it is decorated largely in the Italian style and is the third largest palace in Europe. Our first stop of many in the giant palace was the armory. This was absolutely awesome the armory houses old armor and swords from Charles V, Philip III, and Ferdinand. The oldest piece is a shield dating from 1492. Inside are a ton of mannequins and horses poised in their famous positions wearing this thick heavy armor. It was so thick and you could see the way they formed it to bend at the knee and elbow and the many hinges and straps that held it in place. Downstairs we saw a ton of little kid mannequins and found out that it was customary for everyone in the royal family to wear armor during war for show and it was so strange to see such intricate pieces for a ten year old. There were also a lot of huge beautiful swords that were actually used in battle. The horses were also decked out in their armor and it’s amazing they didn’t throw a fit being covered in heavy metal and carrying a man. They also had a lot of old fashion guns, some made of ivory with beautiful carvings, some were taller than I am and I have no idea how they were fired. This was a no photo zone but I manage to snatch a few illegally.

Our next stop was the “room” of paintings, try many rooms. The painting use to hang all over the castle and were mainly religious themed which was pretty cool. I always enjoy seeing the way different people depict the life of Jesus through paintings and it was interesting to see the many forms and activities of the holy family. After the rooms of paintings we were onto the main event, the actual palace rooms. We entered and walked up the grand staircase, it was the grandest staircase I have ever been on. And of course there was a Spanish man shouting no foto no foto, ruining my awe and wonder moment. The ceilings were all painted with the most beautiful frescos and of course the room is decked out with statues, mirrors, chandeliers, and trim. The next rooms we walked through were the guard room and the hall of columns, which was originally the ballroom and dining room. The next room was the ever impressive throne room with red velvet walls and twelve mirrors to indicate the twelve months of the year. The ceiling fresco depicted traveling to the new world and Rick told us to play the game find the Native Americans. The next rooms were the antechamber, Gasparini room, Charles III bedroom, porcelain room, and the Gala dining room. The Gala Dining room has a table the size of a bowling lane that can seat up to one hundred and forty four people. The next rooms were the cinema room, silver room, china room, royal chapel, queen’s boudoir, Stradivarius room, billiard and smoking room, queens tea room, and the fine woods room. Each room was gaudier than the next and full of the most impressive and expensive furniture and chandeliers I have ever seen. Don’t worry I snapped some illegal photos here too. Rick has a self guided tour through the palace so I was able to read my travel book and walk through the rooms understanding their old purposes. The last stop on our trip was the old pharmacy. It was chalk a block full of old medicine vials and the old laboratory they used to brew their various concoctions.

 After our many hours of wandering we visited the palace gardens and the many statues in the park area. People were hungry so we stopped at a cheap café for bocadillos and drinks. Our small meals didn’t satisfy our hungry stomachs so we stopped back at our hostel for chocolate spread sandwiches before making it to our next stop. Carrie is obsessed with modern art, an English major intellectual type, so we had to stop by the Centro de Arte Renia Sofia or the modern art museum. We walked over and I literally felt like I was in the Jocelyn in Omaha, it’s funny I still don’t understand how a row of lined paper with a water stain can be art across an ocean. It was kind of cool though to see the many works of Picasso and Salvador Dali. This museum houses the Guernica a famous Picasso work that is hanging on the wall of most Spanish class rooms. Another cool aspect of the museum was that it was actually Madrid’s first public hospital and many of the displays were in the mental ward so the windows were barred. I was more interested in the building than the art so obviously I sat on a bench for a long part of the hour. After getting our culture on it was time to hit up another important plaza in Madrid.

We headed off to la puerta del sol a place of many demonstrations and huge groups of Spaniards hanging out. We saw an old man carrying around a free Egypt sign. It is home to the famous Madrid statue of the bear pawing the berry bush. This is a symbol for Madrid because bears use to be prevalent in the royal hunting grounds and the madrono tree produces madrono liqueur. We spent some time exploring the various stores and restaurants poking around on the side streets. We actually found a restaurant called Iowa, the menu consisted of mainly bacon and eggs, I guess that’s all they think we eat in Iowa. After wandering for a bit we found a café and ordered pops and reenergized for a while. We played some cards and hung out before we decided to head back to the hostel and take for a little R and R. Carrie was still pretty sick so I wanted her to take a nap anyway. Hanna and I sat down stairs and get this, they sold beer from a vending machine for one Euro, gotta love Spain. Eventually we decided to hit up the town with the rest of the group. Though we were both too lazy to change so I hit up the Madrid nightlife in leggings, a tie dye sweatshirt, a red plaid scarf, and my purple camp rain jacket, looking fly. We explored different clubs and grew to appreciate the cover free establishments in Oviedo. Hanna and I returned to the hostel shortly after heading out to prepare for our early morning of flea market shopping.

Sunday morning we woke up bright and early, eight am, enjoyed our free breakfast, packed up, and headed out for el Rastro. El Rastro is the largest flee market in Europe and rick suggested you get there before eleven a.m. so obviously I obeyed. We started out in the plaza mayor enjoying browsing the very, very impressive coin and stamp collection presented by these old men who were absolutely serious about their game. Oh and I should mention that since we were too lazy to put on our nice clothes the night before, and since I was going to church later, we were wearing dresses and leggings and it was the coldest day, I thought my feet were going to fall off. We wandered through the many stalls, if I may say so I found some pretty great gifts for my family. We spent a lot of time at the mineral tables obviously and I saw a ton of cinnabar for sale, a mineral that we learned about in class that we weren’t allowed to lick because it contained mercury. After browsing till about ten thirty we were freezing and decided to break in a café for colacao. After an hour of warming up we hit the stalls again and it was instantly evident why rick recommended before eleven. I have never seen so many people before in my life. We had to fight to get back up the street let alone buy anything. Around twelve I broke off from the group to attend mass at the church connected to the palace. Mass ended up taking place instead though under the cathedral in the crypt. This was pretty haunting mass experience. The echoes were serious and I was literally surrounded by dead bodies in the floor and walls, but the crypt was pretty and once again many people were in attendance. I am slowly picking up various parts of the mass in Spanish, getting a missalette in Spanish is on my list of things to do this week so I can at least follow along.

After mass I met up with the group at our hostel and we ate the rest of our bread and chocolate in the common room before leaving for the metro. Our bus left at four and it was a long, bottom paining ride back to Oviedo. They play American movies on the bus that they dub over in Spanish, so they are always teasing me. I made it home in time for dinner and Amparo was waiting for me wanting to hear all about Madrid. She had texted me Friday night when I was hanging out in the hostel with all my friends saying she hoped I was having fun. Everyone was jealous of our host mother host daughter love.

This week so far has been flying by and a lot of fun. We have been meeting the cafeterias after lunch to play cards and on Tuesday we played Spanish baulderdash. Today, Wednesday, I went on a glorious hike in the mountain with some friends, oh and last night we celebrated our second ladies night, on a Tuesday this time, but it was still like four Euro for a glass of wine, cheaper alternative is definitely needed. Amparo and I have been having many hour long conversations about petroleum and immigration haha I am really stepping up my game here. She says I am improving and I am finding that I understand a lot a lot more of what she is saying and she has to explain less and less. My speaking still needs a lot of work, but she is always telling me to not worry by May I’ll be a Spaniard, so I am not going to. Classes are interesting and my vocabulary has greatly expanded in only three weeks. I hope you all are enjoying the snow, I skyped my friend Michael and he showed me the snow piled up to his door. I will leave you with another list of things I have learned or observations I have made in Spain.

Hasta Lluego,

Elizabeth 

1.      Spanish television contains nudity, terrible language, and the middle finger.

2.      Old woman and old men parade around the cities at night, woman bundled in thick fur coats and men in their Sunday bests.

3.      Dos besos means more than dos besos on a weekend night.

4.      Puta madre means hell yes.

5.      Expect to eat have a baguette of bread at every meal.

6.      The exchange rate is worsening to 1 USD =1.427 Euro (my bank account cries daily).

See my pictures at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=330549&id=563560128&l=843ca72834

Leon

Si,

Let me begin by telling you ten differences I have noticed between Spain and the United States these first few weeks:

1.      

1.   1. In the US we have fifty minute classes and they run from, for example, 9:00-9:50, in Spain we have fifty minute classes that run from 9:10-10:00.

2.      2. Babies are bundles up and put in strollers with a clear plastic lining covering them so it looks like they are suffocating.

3.      3. They eat mainly with spoons, very anti-fork over here.

4.      4. I have seen only one person wear anything athletic since I have been here, they were sweat pants.

5.      5. Not everyone takes communion in mass, and when it’s time for communion it’s a free-for-all race to the priest.

6.      6. Everything and everyone runs fifteen minutes late, except buses.

7.      7. My madre made me a ham and cheese bocadillo (sandwich) when I traveled on Saturday, she made it for me Friday afternoon and it sat out from then until two on Saturday. They refrigerate nothing!

8.      8. Café con leche or their version of hot chocolate is hot chocolate pudding.

9.      9. People don’t wear wedding rings or wear them on their left or right hand.

10.  10. Soccer is not a sport, it is lifestyle.

There are many others but those are the top ones that come to mind now. The rest of my school week played out typically. Wednesday I have class from 9-3 but I have a break between each class. Carrie and I spent those breaks at café favorit planning trips and checking email. She had the daunting task of choosing which museums we are attending next weekend in Madrid. After class I returned home for lunch, then met back up with Carrie at café carpie diem to play cards etc. Thursday I didn’t have class till noon so I enjoyed a long leisurely stroll around Oviedo exploring on my own. That afternoon I had translation, hispanoamerica, and literature. I love my translation class, Juan my professor (Oh that’s another think we call professors by their first name) has a British accent when he speaks English. I am learning so much in that class about grammar and vocabulary, we translate English sentences into Spanish and he does a fantastic job at explaining things and telling great stories. My other two classes are taught by a woman named Silvia who is the demon teacher of Oviedo. She is a mumbler, soft spoken and doesn’t speak a lick of English. She teaches everyone in all the intermediate and advance levels, and no one ever has a clue what that woman is muttering on about. Everyone is just fighting sleep until she says the one thing we do understand, entiendas? Which means do you understand, when of course we all nod yes having no idea what meaning the last twenty minutes held. That class is brutal. After class we headed to the bus station to buy our tickets for Leon on Saturday and Madrid next weekend. I had our time and everything all picked out and written down on a piece of paper so I thought this shouldn’t be too bad as I approached the ticket window. Wrong! It was easier to buy tickets in South Korea that this was, and the lady half spoke English. Anyway, after a long and very stressful conversation I got a bus plus card and we had discounted tickets to Madrid. After our wonderful bus experience Hanna, Carrie, and I headed off to the school cafeteria, where we met up with Dylan to play cards and chat. That night after dinner was our weekly meeting with Paula and Luna to discuss how we were doing etc. We met at Ciceros at ten and had fun sharing stories and laughing. The most frequented subject is the ever popular, “You’ll never guess what my madre said/did” and “You won’t believe what my madre fed me!” We love comparing host families and laughing at the great situations they create for us. I headed back to my casa around midnight and was openly mocked by Amparo about only being out till midnight and called me a baby, I need to work on my party hardy Spanish side. 

Friday morning it was still rough to get up for my nine am class knowing I was stuck with Silvia for two hours. We endured, barely, and were rewarded with 11 am siestas back at our houses. My mom woke me up for lunch at two and after I met up with Tyler to help him get a bus ticket to join us in Madrid. I saw the same ticket lady as the day before but we were helped by someone next to her, as we left she gave me the nod. I met Carrie at favorit after and we played on our computers and finalized things for Madrid. We met up again after dinner with people on Calle Gascona for sidra. Sidra is the drink they poor from up high to a glass held at their waist to oxidize it, or so I have heard, actual reasons for many things here in Spain remain a mystery. I headed home early around midnight again, knowing I had a 730 bus in the morning to Leon. 

The next morning Hanna, Carrie, and I met at the bus station at seven am for our “prompt” 730 train to Leon. When we bought the tickets on Thursday we were ambitious and wanted to spend the day taking down a new city, that early in the morning we were really regretting our decision. It was freezing cold on Saturday. And I know in Iowa it’s ten below zero but it’s about twenty degrees here and we are stuck outside all the time walking forever, so I think it balances out. I was wearing leggings, jeans, warm socks, boots, under armor shirt, t-shirt, sweat shirt, coat, gloves, and my ear bags and I was still freezing. We waited for our bus in the waiting area in front of the automatic door where people were constantly coming in and out freezing us out. This one guy kept stepping outside to check for the bus then stepping back inside, can I just tell you we were sitting in front of two giant arrival/departure screens and you could literally see our platform through the clear sliding doors, I almost killed him. Our bus was about fifteen minutes late, very odd, but finally we boarded the warm bus and took a lovely hour and a half nap. I brought my airplane pillow Sarah bought me for my birthday and it worked like a charm. We pulled into Leon around 930 and had to force each other out of the warm bus. We made the fifteen minute walk into town and found a warm café. Our plan was to enjoy a café for a few hours before hitting the sites. I had a chocolate con leche, warm pudding, and delicious croissant. Hanna got a napoliana or a croissant filled with chocolate and carrie a café con leche, they make their coffee with milk here. After eating and playing cards, kitty whisk, for an hour we headed off to San Isadoro Basilica on the other side of town, we would seek out even the smallest sections of sunlight and huddle in the warm rays. San Isadoro basilica is a church with a famous attached museum. The church itself was pretty, nothing extraordinary and we walked around not disturbing the many nuns praying. We next head over to the museum for our 4 € viewing of the pantheon and frescos. The ladies working sent us up the stairs alone and we thought we would be free to explore and enjoy on our own. Wrong. We topped the winding staircase and found a locked clear door leading to a library and we were standing around it looking through and talking when a woman emerged and pushed us into the next room with about thirty people. The room was full of golden church treasures like chalices, crucifixes, and what appeared to be treasure chests. Also the walls of the room contained original frescos. What make this museum so important are the preserved frescoes on the walls in their original locations, very rare. They all follow the life of Jesus and are all really weathered. We next headed into the library room we had previously occupied and she unlocked the glass doors. The room was filled with ancient giant books, various musical books the monks use to use. They were pretty cool to see and the ceiling was decorated with angels reading books. This is when we realized just how unlucky we were, all the other people we joined in the other room were from the same school and on some sort of academic excursion. Our tour guide took it upon herself to go above and beyond explaining everything we saw. Obviously it was in Spanish and we could pick up on some things she was saying but we missed all her jokes, at least that is what we were assuming all the students were laughing about, and I’m pretty sure she didn’t like us. Next we headed into the old tomb room, which was freezing. This is where dozens of the the old kings of Spain use to be buried before the French invasion and the tombs were destroyed. The ceiling and walls were painted with more ancient frescoes and the woman spoke about each section. Forty five freezing minutes later we were lead out into the sunshine to explore the cloister courtyard. We headed back into the bookstore and played who can find the most important thing before heading out, I won with a replica of a golden rooster found in one of the courtyard rooms for 203€, mind you this replica was about four inches tall.

After a very exciting, not, Spanish tour we decided to head back into town to pick through some shops and eventually find a place to enjoy our picnic lunches our madres packed us. While poking around I asked an older couple if they knew where the central commercial was, or the shopping mall because we were cold and wanted to go inside somewhere for free. You have to buy something if you sit in a café. He pointed us into a building which ended up being a grocery store, close but not what we had in mind. After exploring the many aisles we indulged in small 19 cent bag of chips and chocolate sopresas. They are chocolate covered plastic tubes with a toy surprise inside for kids. We found our bench and ate our apples, oranges, and bocadillos, finally it was chocolate sopresa time and we all got different little surprises. I got a helicopter, Hanna a bird/bug (we aren’t sure), and Carrie (after a huge struggle to open the tube) a yo-yo. We finally decided to just go hang out in a café since all the shops were closing down for the afternoon siesta. I ordered Colacoa or hot chocolate and we spent the afternoon playing garbage and other card games. Finally around 4:30 it was time to visit the Cathedral in Leon where I had read in my trusty Rick Steve’s travel guide I would find the second most impressive stained glass in the world. The cathedral did not disappoint. I have never seen so many huge, beautiful stained glass windows in my life. They reflected color onto the floors and walls and were designed as such to have areas of different symbolic meaning, i.e. an area of dark glass for gloomier biblical message and areas of lighter colors for the birth and life of Christ and of course salvation. There were three huge rose windows and then several tall skinny windows some containing simple floral designs while others had intricate detailed pictures of the life of Christ and Saints. The Cathedral was absolutely beautiful, but also freezing cold. We only managed to last a half hour before we had to make for some warmth. We ended the train wandering the rest of Leon then catching the 7 pm train home. Amparo had dinner ready for me when I walked in the door and she and I spent the night watching T.V. together and I filled her in on all the thing I had seen. 

The next morning I woke up for church and attended San Juans Basilica. The church was absolutely beautiful and located right in the heart of Oviedo. There were a ton of families there, I accidently got there very early and watched them have Sunday school in the pews in the front before mass. During mass the huge church was packed with people standing on the side, and they had a children’s choir and during the homily the priest would asks the 50+ kids surrounding him questions about the readings. The rest of Sunday was spent like a good lazy Spaniard should, little café time and a lot of napping television time. I hope you enjoy the rest of your week! Friday I am heading off to Madrid and very excited to see all it has to offer!

Hasta Luego,

Elizabeth