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!