Las Cruces

This past weekend was a really cool festival in Granada. It´s called las cruces meaning the crosses. The festival definitely has religious origins but there´s not much religious about it anymore. Every plaza has platforms with a huge decorative cross. some are made out of flowers and some of leaves and they´re surrounded by ornate decorations. In every plaza there´s flamenco music playing and EVERYONE was out in the streets. I saw men in gitano (gypsy)outfits riding on horses through the streets. All the women were wearing gitana dresses. They´re long with ruffles on the bottom, most have large polka dots or bright floral designs. The kids dress up too! I saw so many adorable little girls all dressed up in flamenco dresses with makeup and combs in their hair dancing flamenco in the plazas. They were so cute! I went out in the afternoon with my new group of Spanish friends. We were out bar hopping and flamenco dancing until 2:30 in the morning. And on my walk home, there were still little kids decked out in gitano outfits out with their parents! It was crazy.

And then the next day, the Real Madrid football (soccer) team won their league tournament. that night, every car was honking their horns incessantly. it sounded like new york city traffic. People were yelling and waving flags throughout the city. They take their football pretty seriously.

This afternoon i´m going on another bike ride! and I¨m very excited about it! I´ll try to update more often!! hasta luego!

Chag Sameach!!

Happy Passover everyone! so far I've had a very pleasant Pesach experience here in sfarad (Spain). After my parents left, we went to Cordoba and Sevilla for the weekend with our group. We saw the great mosque of cordoba, with the red and white striped arches, and the cathedral and plaza de Espana in Sevilla.... and that's about it. unfortunately it was pouring down rain almost the whole weekend. Luckily we were staying in a 4 star hotel that allowed for me to take great afternoon siestas.

But anyway, the point is that Pesach started on saturday night and luckily, my friend Jess on my program has a friend from high school studying in Sevilla who has a Jewish friend on HER program who managed to find a seder!!! I got so lucky that I mentioned in passing that I wanted to find one. The Jewish community in Sevilla has about 90 people but it does exist! So my friend Dana and I took our map and our umbrellas and went in search of the tiny little synagogue. there we prayed the evening service and then after the shabbat had ended they i helped set up for the seder. There about 8 other Americans who had found this tiny synagogue and 4 Israelis who were in Sevilla for the year studying flamenco guitar and dance. I was so happy to find Israelis!! I was surprised at how easily I was able to switch from Spanish to Hebrew. I think i'm going to survive when I got to Israel this summer. The seder was very traditional all in Hebrew. The rabbi made all the israelis and me read (which is rather embarrassing because I'm out of practice and I don't read as well as the Israelis obviously... but it was fine) and it was so great that we all knew the same songs and the same tunes etc. at the end of the meal we sang some zmerot. and to sing am yisrael chai (the nation of israel lives) in Spain, a place where the Jews were persecuted during the Inquisition absolutely gave me the chills.

i had a fantastic pesach experience and i'm finding that keeping kosher for pesach is pretty easy here. i've adopted the sefardi tradition of eating rice (because we are in sfarad) so its not so bad. speaking of food, its lunchtime! hasta luego!

oh spain...

well, I woke up for my 8:45 class only to find out that it had been cancelled when I arrived at the modern language center. great. this is the same teacher who didn´t show up to class on tuesday... mildly frustrating. but now I have plenty of time to check up on my email!

LIfe is pretty sweet here in Granada. it´s been rainy and gross though, the past few days which is not fun since I walk everywhere in this city. yesterday, we stayed inside and watched a spanish movie called jamon jamon. It´s one of Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem´s first movies. they´re both soo young in it and there´s so much racy material. after the fall of Franco´s dictatorship in the 1970´s there was a cultural explosion in Spain. now that movies and music are uncensored, the 1980´s were crazy years in Spain. so Spanish films tend to not hold back on juicy details. if you´re interested in seeing Javier Bardem, the current pride and joy of spain, bull fighting naked, I advise you to see this movie.

That´s it for now... my parents and sister are coming to visit tomorrow!!!! they´ll be here for the week. I can´t wait to see them and show them around granada!!!

hope everyone´s having a great week!
ciao!

End of our mini semester

Friday is our final exam for our grammar class. (yes i actually do take classes here believe it or not) we´re already finished with our culture class. tomorrow we´re just meeting to receive our grades and get coffee with our teacher. The monday starts our new mini semester of history, art history, and political science. I, unfortunately have class at either 8:15 or 8:30 every day. ew. that´s way earlier than I ever take classes in Delaware!
This post is kind of boring, but I havent really been doing too much since i´´ve been back from spring break... umm lets see. i did go to a tiny little candle lit bar to hear live music. This argentinian guy was playing really soft, really chill music that i loved. i´m on the lookout for hole in the wall places like that in this city where i wont be surrounded by americans. i think tonight is reggaeton night at boogaclub... might try that...

anyway, i´m gonna go sit outside and study for my test.
paz afuera!

Botellon

Last night was one of the craziest parties I have ever witnessed. Every year on the first day of spring everyone congregates behind Hipercore (a department store) and parties all afternoon and into the night. It's called a botellon, coming from the word botella which means bottle. Everyone brings bottles of wine and sangria to the parking lot and just drinks. I've heard many different estimates but there were at least 3,000 people there. My friends and I got there at about 11 and there were people there of all ages. I saw kids who looked about 16 and then I saw people who looked like they could be my parents' age. It was absolute madness. But apparently it's like a known thing and it happens every year. They even had a clip of it on national news that night! and I was like, hey I was there! I'm obviously getting my share of culture! :)

I could tell you about the Cathedral in Granada that we also went to see yesterday, but it's just not as interesting.

SPRING BREAK!

I know it's been a while but I've been traveling like crazy for the past few weeks. I'll give you some highlights so it's not too painful to read the whole thing...

I have been...

• meeting policemen in a bar (with live music!!) in san sebastian and them thinking that caroline and I were Espanolas until a half hour into our conversation.
• walking through a super cool aquarium in san sebastian.
• scrambling to catch the last bus back to bilbao
• taking the metro to the airport in bilbao at 6 am
• staying on the beach in the south of france with Marti, the french mechanique. He took us out to a really nice dinner and then we watched ratatouille in french!
• getting dropped off in Perpignan (the Wilmington of France) without minutes on our phones and not speaking a word of French... an adventure to say the least
• spending the night in the barcelona airport drinking vodka with Slovakians
• crashing in madrid with Caroline's friends and making them a real American breakfast in the morning (teaching them how to put ketchup on their eggs)
• attempting to navigate the public transportation system in italy with my minimal italian
• playing ultimate with THE COOLEST group of girls from all over the world in Paganello, the biggest beach ultimate tournament in the world.
  
• not being prepared AT ALL for the weather in Rimini and playing in the same clothing for 4 days straight. including the day it rained...
  
• catching a sweet lay out catch in the end zone and getting sand in places i didnt know existed
• meeting ultimate players from all over the world (switzerland, germany, argentina, new zealand, israel, england etc)
• seeing my coach, tim!!!!!
• hanging out and traveling back to milan with Mike McGee!
• catching the bus back from madrid to granada with caroline and catching each other up on the eternity (5 days) that we had been separated.

Now i'm back in granada and its soo nice to be grounded for once in a place where i feel comfortable. after taking 5 flights over 10 days, i'm def staying in one place for a while...

but yesterday, we went for a bike ride up to the alhambra!!! it was really hard but totally worth the beautiful view of the whole city.

well, that sums up my spring break, i'm sure there were more adventures but this post is long enough as it is. if you've made it this far i'm impressed!!

Viaje!

I'm bouncing today for my spring break! it is Semana Santa (the week before easter) which means that here in granada there will loads of religious pilgrims/tourists coming to see the parades and religious festivities that only happen here in Andalucia. Since I'm not particularly interested in religious traditions and I have more than 10 days off I'm TRAVELING! My friend Caroline and I are leaving today for San Sebastian, a supposedly beautiful city in the North of Spain in Pais Vasko. Then we're flying to Barcelona where my friend Marti (remember the French mechaniques?) is picking us up in his car (!!) and taking us back to the south of France for a few days!! Then it's back to Madrid for a day before I fly out to Milan then hop a train to Rimini Beach for Paganello, the biggest beach ultimate frisbee tournament in the world. I will playing for a women's team from England called Discuits. I'm so excited! I've been running about three times a week since I've been here, but I really hope that I'm in shape enough to play a 4 day tournament... I made sure to bring plenty of ibuprofen.. I wont be back to home base Granada until march 25. so until then... ciao!

check it out!

sombrero de abuelo has a myspace page!!!

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=128976313

ZACATUM!

I had the most amazing weekend! I took a 5 hour bus ride up to Madrid with my friends Laurne and Caroline to spend a weekend with Caroline's Spanish friends. She did an exchange program in high school and has stayed in touch with her host family ever since. So we stayed in the apartment of her host sister, Sarai, in Parque Lisboa, on the outskirts of Madrid. Sarai and her roomates, Mario and Fernando are the coolest people. It was so fun to chill with them. I think I learned more Spanish in the last three days and than in my whole time in Granada. We watched a movie called Princesa that we had learned about in our grammar class earlier in the week. The movie is about prostitutes in Madrid. It's really interesting and kind of sad, but very well done. I would definitely recommend it. But the highlight of the weekend was a concert that we went to last night. There were 5 bands that played. Two of them were groups of about 20 to 30 people all playing percussion instruments. They stood in a circle in the middle of the club and just jammed out. There was a "conductor" in the middle of the circle who had a whistle and his own snare drum and he kept giving the group hand signals when to change beats. Often we would do a rhythm and everyone would respond, or he would single out certain section of the ensemble. It was really incredible. the rhythms were so complex and it was so loud that you could feel the music rather than hear it. And everyone in this venue, which was about the size of Toad's Place, was super hippy. I've never seen more "rastas" (dreadlocks) and lip piercings in my life. These drum ensembles were called Zacatum and Samba da Rua. Look them up. But my favorite band by far was called Sombrero de Abuelo. They are a fusion band: part reggae, part flamenco, part rock. they were incredible. Ashley, you would have totally appreciated it.

There were many other misadventures that we had with our Spanish friends. We went to the park in the afternoon and just chilled out. Mario played the guitar while someone else banged on the "cajon" a drum that you sit on used for flamenco. and we would sing and pass a soccer ball. (I was absolutely dying to throw a frisbee but of course I didn't have one with me.) ummm what else did we do? We cooked dinner. I almost forgot how much I miss cooking. and even cleaning up! I washed so many dishes while I was there. It made me rather nostalgic thinking of 9 Courtney...

Speaking of which, i just got a call from my friend that i met here at the clm who plays ultimate for occidental college in CA. I'm gonna go throw for the first time in weeks. so excited. peace out!

comprendido?

wow it's been a while! Time for an update!

This past weekend we took an excursion to Madrid. We stayed in this cute little hotel near the Palacio Real (royal palace) and we took day trips to Toledo and Segovia. I like Toledo the best. It's this quaint little town along the river Tajo that's known for its gold filigree artwork. I visited one of the oldest synagogues in Spain while there which actually didn't look anything like a synagogue. It was built by Arabs so the architecture looks like that of a mosque, and once the Jews were kicked out of Spain in 1492, it was used as a church so there's a cross and some Christian artwork where the alter would be. However, our guide told us that this building was once a synagogue, so I believed her.

On our way up to Madrid we stopped in La Mancha to see ... you guessed it molinos del viento! (windmills) They were built in the 16th century, the very windmills that Don Quijote thought were giants. We took some great pictures next to the windmills pretending to be Quijote and Sancho Panza.

In Segovia we saw the castle of King Felipe V the inspiration for the castle in Disney's Sleeping Beauty. and if you know your Disney movies, you'll notice that the prince in Sleeping Beauty is named prince Phillip. Coincidence? I think not. My friend Lauren and I paid an extra 2 euro and climbed to the top of the tallest tower where we found a fair maiden who had been sleeping for hundreds of years. No, just kidding we didn't find anyone, but the view of the city was breathtaking.

We also went to two art museums in Madrid: the Prado and the Reina Sofia. In the Prado we saw famous works by Velazquez, el Greco, and Goya. This was especially of interest to me because I had studied all of this in Spanish class in high school. I actually knew what each artist's style was and which are their most famous works. Sra. Glunt would be so proud. In the Reina Sofia we saw Picasso's famous Guernica depicting the airstrike by the Nazis on the town of Guernica during the Spanish civil war. Franco wanted to quell the uprising of the Basques who wanted independence so he authorized the Nazis to bomb the civilian population of this town, completely destroying it. Picasso's depiction of human suffering is incredibly poignant.

And to top off a great weekend, our 5 hour bus ride back to Granada was made a little longer on sunday night. Our bus broke down for about an hour and half on the side of the road. There was no bathroom on our bus and our program director would not let us off the bus to pee so many of the girls who had to go, went in plastic bags and emptied them out the window. Ew. Luckily I was able to hold it.

Now I'm back in Granada, back to a daily schedule of classes in the morning and free afternoons to run, sleep and meet up with language partners. Hope all is well back in the states!

Finally in Granada!

I know it's been a while, but I've been very busy exploring Granada! It's a beautiful, very typically European city, with motos zipping down narrow side streets and cute little balconies in every apartment. My host madre is adorable and she makes the most amazing food. The schedule is very different here. I eat toast and fruit for breakfast before I leave for school at 8. The we eat a huge lunch at about 2 or 2:30. Then the whole city shuts down and everyone goes home for siesta. Stores reopen at about 5 and stay open til about 9:30. We eat dinner at about 9 and then go out! We've been exploring the bar scene here in Granada. The city is full of little "tapas" bars where you get a free appetizer with every round of drinks that you order. I haven't been to any of the clubs around here yet, but tonight we're going to try a salsa club called salsera mayor. I'm hoping that its good.

So basically, everything is going well. I finally booked my flight from Madrid to Milan for Paganello!! It was slightly more expensive than I had hoped but flying into Italy for Easter weekend is bound to be slightly pricier than any other time of year. Oh well. I'm planning to travel around in Spain with my friend Caroline for the week before I leave for Italy. We'll probably go to Valencia and Madrid and other places that we won't get to see with the rest of our group.

Um.. what else exciting has happened? I'm speaking a ridiculous amount of Spanish. My roomate, Rachel, and I don't speak English in the house. And every night we watch the news in Spanish while eating dinner. Whenever we go out at night we always find Spanish people to talk to. I already feel like I'm improving my conversational Spanish!

Well, i guess that's all for now. When something super exciting happens I'll be sure to get back here. Please feel free to email me updates about your lives as well!! Ciao!

Las Ramblas and La Sagrada Familia

I have spent the last few days seeing the sights of Barcelona. From the street performers in Las Ramblas to the cow heads for sale in the Boqueria Mercado, Barcelona has been a whirl of new things to see and do. We went to the museum of Pablo Picasso. I could have spent hours there. Seeing a whole museum of one's person's work and analyzing the way his style changes as he gets older is so fascinating. Sometimes I wish I was an art history major... and then I do other things and remember why I love being a language major so much. I had falafel for lunch today in a store owned by an Israeli. I was so proud of the fact that I was able to switch from speaking Spanish to Hebrew without hesitating or mixing them up. I could speak to him in Hebrew then turn to my friend and translate to her what we were saying in Spanish!! I know I'm a loser, but this is what makes me so happy. Also, remember the French mechanics I had dinner with on my first night here? I introduced them to my group when they arrived and we became good friends. We got dinner together almost every night we've been here. My friend Rachel speaks a bit of French so we speak in French and Spanish with a few middle men translating back and forth. It's like a dream come true for me!

Last night we went out to a discotheque near the beach in Barcelona. The nightclub played great music, regaeton, salsa, rap and occasionally threw in classics like the theme from Rocky. Our French escorts were perfect gentlemen. They paid for our cabs and danced with us into the wee hours of the morning. (we didn't get to the club until the standard starting hour of 2 AM.) It was all good until we had to get up at 7:30 to go touring the city this morning.

Today we saw the museum of Joan Mori. With influences like Dali and Picasso, he had a very weird modern abstract style but I really liked it. Again I could've spent hours trying to figure out what this series of wavy lines is and whether that shape is supposed to be a phallic symbol or not...

Anyway, tomorrow we're leaving at 6:45 AM to fly to Granada to meet our host parents! I'm very excited to get to my permanent home and unpack my stuff and have meals cooked for me... The next time you here from me I will be in Andalucia! hasta pronto!

Les Mecaniques

It turns out that I arrived a day earlier than the rest of my group. So last night I took a shower and came down to the lobby of the hostel to find someone to eat dinner with. I walked up to the only group of people there and introduced myself. We started chatting and turns out that they were a group of mechanics from the south of France who were there on an exchange program. Two of their professors and one boy spoke excellent Spanish so I spent most of my time talking to them. The other boys spoke no English and no Spanish, and my French is a step below elementary. So we attempted to communicate over dinner and some cerveza. I would speak in Spanish to Martin and he would translate for everyone else. And you would be surprised by how much you can actually communicate with people even if your only common language is neither of your native tongues. It was definitely an interesting dinner.

Today my group arrived and it was so weird to hear people speaking English. I was amazed at how fast I was able to get my points across in English. It´s like I forgot how easy it is to communicate in English. Haha Hopefully one day Spanish will come to me that easily, but until then, I know that I´ll have to struggle a bit.

I¨m currently waiting for the rest of my group to finish showering and napping. Silly jet lag. I´m well ahead of them in that sense. Two other girls and I already went for a run to explore a bit of the city. I already had a quasi shower. It was absolutely miserable. It was luke warm and its the kind of shower that you have to push a button every 6 seconds to keep the water flowing otherwise it turns off. Damn the business conference that´s going on in Barcelona that forced us to get a hostel instead of an actual hotel...

Anyway, that´s all for now. Tomorrow we´re going to see some of sites of the city. oMaybe las ramblas or la Sagrada Familia. hasta luego!

Safely in Barcelona!

I arrived this morning at my hostel in Barcelona!! My last few days in London were amazing. I left Debbie and went to stay with my cousin Kerri. Kerri has an flat right next to what is the London equivalent of 5th avenue. It's BEAUTIFUL. When I told my other English friends I was staying in Knightsbridge they all were very impressed that I managed to score a place to stay in the most expensive part of London. On saturday, Kerri and I did the touristy thing and went to the Tower of London. We got a tour from a yeoman (also known as a Beefeater) who was really entertaining. He told us the history of the tower and of all the people who were beheaded for treason in the there. Kerri and I then saw the crown jewels which are kept in the tower, and a collection of royal armour. We then had a picnic lunch on the grass over looking the Tower Bridge. It was such a nice afternoon.

Later that day I met my captain for the ultimate team I'm going to play for in Paganello, the biggest beach tournament in the world. I'm going to play for the Discuits (like biscuits, but with a d) which is a women's team based in the UK. The captain, Sarah was really nice and obviously an ultimate player. It was so cool to chat with her about ultimate and the tournament (this is her 8th Paganello) and she was really informative. The tournament is in Rimini beach, Italy over Easter weekend and I'm already excited.

I then had a night out with my friends from year course, Mark and Darren. We tried to get into this really swanky club and they weren't letting us in, mainly because we weren't paying 200 pounds for a table and because we had more boys than girls in our party. So stupid. So instead we went out to a bar for a drink and then caught the last tube back home.

Sunday, I spent the day pub hopping and watching football (soccer) with Kerri and her friends. It was such a fun day and I'm so lucky that I got to spend so much time with Kerri. She's like the older sister I never had.... cheesy, I know, but, it's so true.

I got up at 5:30 this morning to get to Heathrow airport for my 9:20 am flight to Barcelona. I managed to get my baggage and a cab to my hostel without any problems. My cab driver chatted to me about politics in Spanish the whole way to the hostel. He's not a huge fan of the immigrants who are coming in to Spain. This obviously interested me because I plan on doing research this summer about Spain's controversial immigration policies.

So that's it. I think I'm gonna hang out with Jorge, my resident director, and find myself something to eat. I'm starving. Bye!

Dancing the night away

Last night I went to the most amazing nightclub in Kingston called Oceana and it put the clubs in New Haven to shame. I've never seen anything like it in my life. It had 7 different bar/lounge areas each with a different theme. There was a ski lounge area, a Tokyo/futuristic room and of course the Grand Ballroom. The Grand Ballroom was HUGE. It had a massive chandalier in the middle with three balconies overlooking the dancefloor. Each balcony had plush chairs to sit on and a bar at the back. I went on a wednesday night (student night) and the place was packed. The soundsystem was unreal. The bass literally vibrated the floor and I could feel it in my toes. Actually it was kind of like a nice massage for my aching feet (I was forced to wear heels). After dancing all night to latest in hip hop R&B and garage music, I got back to Debbie's flat at about 3 AM. Not bad for a wednesday. Today I'm going in to London to meet my cousin Kerri and my friend Rachel from camp. Yay! I have friends!

You'll run as fast as KENYANS!

Hi everyone!
my adventures to England actually began on the plane ride over. (Veronica, you'll appreciate this) I sat next to the world champion 1500 and 5000 meter runner, Bernard Lagat. You can read up on him here: http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/news/story?id=2958661 I couldn't believe I was sitting next to an Olympic athlete! And he turned out to be the nicest guy. He flicked on the little television on the seat in front of us and showed me on bbc sports his race at the world championship meet in Japan. "That's me coming around the corner!" 1500m in 3:26:34. No Big Deal. I was absolutely star struck.
After my 7 hour flight, I arrived at London Heathrow Airport at 6 AM London time. My smiley but tired friend Debbie was there to pick me up and we drove straight to her parents' house in Ramsgate. We walked around the harbor and ate delicious fish n' chips. I passed out pretty early though, it had been a long day.
The next day, Debbie and went sightseeing in London. We went on the London Eye (This HUGE ferris wheel that allows you to see the whole city), we saw Big Ben and Tower Bridge and the national gallery. I kept thinking of Mary Poppins: dancing on the rooftops of London, and all the pigeons at st. Paul's cathedral. I've had Chim-Chiminey stuck in my head for days.
Today, I took the tube (subway) into London all by myself. I went up to Golder's Green in NW London which is a very Jewish area. There were Kosher restaurants people speaking Hebrew on every corner. I met up with Susie and Danny, two of my friends from my Israel program who I haven't seen in three years. It was so nice to catch up!
Well that's all for now. I am a bit knackered but very happy. I didn't realize how many people I know in England! I have lots of people to see and very little time to do it in.

In the Beginning...

Hi everyone!
This will be my travel blog for the semester that I'm in Spain! This way you don't have to feel bombarded by update emails from me you can just check it out whenever you like. I'll do my best to keep it updated so you can read about my adventures as they happen. I'll try to post pictures as well.

So tomorrow I'm leaving for London. I'll be there for a week visiting friends from camp and my Israel trip and my cousin Kerri who just moved out there. And of course I'll do the tourist thing and see some of the sights in London.

The next time you hear from me I will be across the Atlantic! I hope everyone is having a great 2008 so far and please feel free to email me updates from you!

Hasta luego!