Ha

Today Kathleen, my roommate, and I decided to go to the mall. I was really excited because we decided to go to the one that's a good 40 minute metro ride away but has an IKEA. We got off the metro in this very strange neighborhood. It was strange because it was just so...I don't know. It just had this very prefabricated feel to it. It didn't look like Madrid at all and instead felt like we were on some sort of movie set. It was also weird because there was practically no one outside on the streets. I told Kathleen like it looked like it was the day after the zombie apocalypse (sans zombies of course...I guess the non-zombies won). Anyway, we trekked over to the mall and I was really weirded out by the fact that there were no cars there. We got in the mall and then realized that only the food court was open--today is Madrid's San Isidro festival. I knew that, but forgot to think that because of it all stores would be closed. So yes, my effort to put off studying for my exams by going to the mall turned out to be an epic fail.

School is officially done. I have one kind-of exam for language on Monday, and then my finals for history on Tuesday, art history on Wednesday and lit. on Monday the 25th. I know that if I actually study I'll be all right, but it's really hard to sit down and do it. It's been especially hard because people that I've gotten to know from other programs are starting to leave now, and it's just hard to focus in the middle of saying goodbye. One of my really good friends is leaving on Sunday...

The two pictures at the top of the post are ones my friend Sonya took of these two mosaics up in Sol. They're recreations of the paintings the 2nd and 3rd of May by Goya. Apparently they made them with over 80,000 pictures sent in by Madrileños! They're really beautiful at night when the lights from the windows illuminate them from behind.

Oh! In other exciting news there was a small fire in the building across the street from my apartment building. I don't think anyone was hurt and the firetruck was only on the street for about 15 minutes, so I don't think it was a bad fire, but I did see smoke!

Segovia

Numbers:
8 days until finals start
20 days until my mom visits
26 days until my friend April visits
38 days until I return to the U.S.

Those numbers look so small compared to the numbers that I started out with...

Yesterday, as one last hurrah before the last week of real school (and thus having to study the next two weekends for finals) my friend Caitlin and I took a little day-and-a-half trip to Segovia. It's only an hour and 15 minutes outside of Madrid, but it was nice to get away because I've been stressed out lately with the papers I've had to write and the tests that I've had to start studying for. You know, it was great to not really have to do anything other than attend class all semester, but now...now, I don't remember how to do work! It's ridiculous.

Segovia was the perfect cure for my anxiety though. It was a really joyful little city. There were multiple puppet shows in the streets, carousels, lots of small children running around and gorgeous views of the landscapes surrounding the city. There were times where I would just look out towards the mountains and I would think, "Wow, this is what I used to picture when I would think about Spain." Picturesque--that's the word I'm looking for. The city was picturesque without being overly precious (for comparison, Salamanca was overly precious). And of course we saw the aqueduct, which is what Segovia is known for. The aqueduct was built by the Romans almost 2000 years ago! It's just an amazing feat of engineering especially when you consider that it was made with no mortar--the bricks are cut so that they just fit. It was really stunning.

The aqueduct is at the top of the post and the Alcázar (this kind of cool-looking castle) is the other picture. Right by the Alcázar we found a good spot to take pictures and we were doing that when this guy gets out of a van parked near-by and says (in English), "Hi...umm, just to let you know i am going to make pee pee over here, so you might want to stand somewhere else." We moved and after a few seconds he was like, "Oh okay, I'm done now. You can come back." Caitlin politely thanked him for the information (I was too busy holding back fits of giggles), but we didn't go back over there.

Click here for more pictures.

Salamanca

A lot of people who study abroad in Spain from UWO go to Salamanca (especially the people who go in the summer) and I had the option of going there for the semester. I love Madrid, but I've heard great things about Salamanca and have occasionally wondered if I should have studied there instead. However, after spending the weekend there, I know I made the right choice to come to Madrid. Salamanca was quaint and pretty with a fair bit of history, but also too small. Had I not gone along on the guided tours I probably could have seen every point of interest in the city in under three hours by myself. I enjoyed visiting it, and the trip was great because I got to hang out from some ISA kids who go to the other school that I like but never see, but by Sunday morning all of us were ready to get back to Madrid.

So anyway, check out the photos and my travel tip is: if you are in Spain visit Salamanca, but don't bother spending more than one night there. (But you should spend at least one night there so you can see the Plaza Mayor at night because it's absolutely stunning!)

P.S. The first few pictures in the album are from Ávila because we stopped there for a few hours before getting to Salamanca.

P.P.S. My mom comes to Spain in 31 days and I'm super excited!

Una procesión de Semana Santa

I meant to post this on Easter, but I forgot to. Throughout Holy Week various groups arrange processions which commemorate different aspects of Holy Week (e.g. Christ's death, the resurrection, etc.). On the Saturday before Easter I went to the procesión de la soledad and it was unlike anything I've ever seen. Everyone was pushing and shoving to get a good view of the figure of "Nuestra Señora de la Soledad" (my picture of her is at the top of the post). I got elbowed by so many little old ladies, and some of them even took to climbing up lampposts just to see what was going on!

Anyway, I put two little video clips together so you can see what happens as the procession begins:

Flashback (not the LOST variety though)

Today I saw this little girl who was probably about four years old on the metro. She was wearing these really cute pink glasses...and had an eye patch over her left eye. She had brown hair and, though she didn't look exactly like me, the resemblance was close enough that I felt like I was looking at myself from 17 years ago. It was strangely funny.

Barcelona!

This past week has been Semana Santa which essentially means spring break! Because a general rule of studying abroad is that if you have more than three days in a row off of school you have to go somewhere, my roommate Kathleen (and her dad and brother for the first two days) and I went to Barcelona. For the record, I think that's a good rule :-).

Barcelona was a really exciting city. It's on the Mediterranean Sea, so it's kind of a beach town, and yet if you traveled just up the main thoroughfare, Las Ramblas, and then went down one of the little streets you found yourself in an old Gothic neighborhood. If you went up the street from that you felt like you were on Michigan Ave. in Chicago. I guess to me Barcelona felt like it was a lot of different places all rolled into one. But as Kathleen's guidebook said, when you're in Barcelona "you're not in Spain, you're in Catalunya." And that sentiment was very true; Barcelona felt significantly "less Spanish" than a lot of the other places I've been...and it makes sense concerning the history of the region--Catalan culture and language were so repressed under the Franco dictatorship that now the differences between the region and the rest of Spain are highlighted a bit more as a matter of pride I guess. Honestly, I wish I knew more about Barcelona's history in general because I think I would have appreciated the city even more if I knew more about it, but also, by the end of the trip I missed the "Spanish-ness" of Madrid. However, I would definitely visit Barcelona again and again because there is so much to do there!

Anyway, the highlights of the trip were seeing the buildings and the park designed by Gaudí. I had seen pictures of his work before and I knew it was trippy, but just looking at these buildings that seemed to have no angles and this park that, as Kathleen's brother said, looked like Willy Wonka designed it really makes you reexamine your own perspective. Other highlights of the trip included hunting for beach glass on the shoreline (I grew up on Lake Michigan and never had seen beach glass like that before! I pretended I was finding emeralds instead of worn down pieces of beer bottles). I saw an amazing (free!) art exhibit about an abandoned prison and the grafitti found on the walls there and also these letters written by a woman to her lover, a political prisoner. I also enjoyed going to the Olympic stadium because I have memories of watching the '92 games with my mom when I was four and I think that was when I first learned about Spain. Perhaps the funniest thing on the trip was that the best meal I had was at an Irish pub--I don't know, it's just funny when I think that I was in Spain, but really in Catalunya (with the Sagrada Familia behind me--it's the most famous Gaudí building and is the picture at the top of this post) eating Irish food with a traditional Irish band playing in the background but hearing American pop music blasted over the speakers.

For some reason, it's really hard for me to come up with words right now to describe any more about Barcelona, so I'm just going to let you check out the pictures:
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4

What I'm going to do the first week I get back to the States

I am going to eat these things at these restaurants:
1) Steak Grilled Stuffed Burrito--Taco Bell
2) Pepperoni Pizza & Garlic Knots--Politos
3) Hamburger w/ Pepper Jack Cheese--Becket's
4) Pepperoni Stix & Berry Stix--Toppers
5) $5 Footlong--Subway
6) Chicken Strips & Nickel Nuggets--Glass Nickel
7) Pork BBQ--Pearson's
8) Wings--Buffalo Wild Wings/The Bar
9) Short Stack--IHOP
10) Japanese Pan Noodles--Noodles and Co.

And I'm going to drink as much Diet Mountain Dew as I can find!