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:

Spring is blooming in the city!

Click here for more photos.

Toledo!

Hi everyone,

Yesterday ISA took us to Toledo and it was a lot of fun. For one thing Carlos and Carmen led the trip and they're the funniest ISA directors. (Carlos loves to get on the bus microphone and talk about absolutely nothing. It's funny.) We also had this entertaining, passionate tour guide, Marcos.

Toledo is beautiful. It's on top of a hill (we actually took this outdoor escalator to get up the hill) and surrounded on three sides by the Río Tajo. We went on a walking tour of the city and explored the Monestario de San Juan de los Reyes and the Sinagoga de Santa María la Blanca. The synagogue was so interesting because it was a Jewish synagogue, but the architecture was very Moorish. Later on Christians converted it into a church. During the Middle Ages all of these cultures coexisted in Toledo (before the unification of Spain under the Reyes Católicos and the subsequent expulsion of Jewish and Muslim people) and it was interesting to see all of the cultures leave their own marks on one building.

We walked around some more and stopped for a quick bathroom/snack break. I bought a Coca Cola Light at this one taberna so I could use its bathroom and they gave me this little plate of chorizo and potatoes in this delicious tomato based sauce. It was amazing and I don't know what it was called because I didn't ask for it; the woman behind the counter just gave it to me. I'm seriously craving it right now. Then we went to the Iglesia de Santo Tomé and saw one of El Greco's masterpieces, The Burial of the Count of Orgaz. I really enjoyed seeing the painting because we studied it for almost two days in my art history class this past week. I've really come to like El Greco's work. We also walked past the cathedral and on to the Plaza de Zocodover.

After that we had some free time. My new roommates (the other ones moved out because they wanted to have someone cook for them) and I went to lunch at this cute little restaurant. We ate and then sat and talked for a while and really got to know each other. I love Spain because you can just sit forever after you're done with your meal and they don't try to hurry you out of the restaurant and they don't annoy you by asking you if you want dessert 50 billion times. Eating meals is really relaxing here. Anyway, I really like my new roommates a lot and we went shopping a bit after we left the restaurant. I had kind of wanted to go to the Alcázar, but it was okay. It was nice exploring more of the winding streets. And after all that, we got on the bus and I took an hour siesta until I arrived back in Madrid.

Click here to see my photos!

Zaragoza

(At the Palacio de la Aljafería--l to r: Sonya, Kate, Rachel, me, Christina)

So I had a fantastic weekend in Zaragoza, which is northeast of Madrid. Zaragoza is the capital of the autonomía (kind of like a state/province) of Aragón and it's located on the Río Ebro. It took us about four hours by bus to get there. I have to say, I was really impressed with the bus service we took. The bus was fairly comfortable. We watched a James Bond movie on the way to Zaragoza and on the way there and back we stopped halfway through for a 20 minute break to eat, go to the bathroom, etc (and there was a bathroom on the bus too!). Best of all the ticket was only 26 euros round trip and we were able to buy the ticket the day of the trip (and we also kept our departure date open so we were free to come back when we wanted). We just went to the bus station and bought it--it's so simple! I have travelled by Greyhound in the U.S. and I just have to say that my experience with this bus company, ALSA, was 100x better.

Then we got to Zaragoza and after a city bus ride that took us in the wrong direction and a little bit of a walk in the right direction we found our hostel. It was the only actual hostel in Zaragosa and it was really nice. There were five of us and we were in an eight person room, but we had it all to ourselves the first night and only one roommate the second night. Actually we had only planned on staying one night, but liked it so much and it was so cheap that we decided to stay for a second night. After getting settled we ate and wandered around a bit. We found the river (it wasn't hard to find because it was only about half a block away) and the beautiful basilica there. The basilica was immense and I liked it because Goya had painted some of the vaulted ceilings. There was a mass going on while we were there and it was interesting to watch. But over all the architecture and decorum of the church was just amazing. Then we walked around a lot more and went to the grocery store because the hostel had a kitchen and settled in for the night. We were all really tired, so it was nice to go to bed early.

The next day it rained and that put a damper on our plans to bike around the city. We went to this cafe for a late breakfast, but spent two hours there and ended up ordering lunch as well. I had the best hamburger of my life there. It was just the hamburger--no bun or anything like that--served with a fried egg. It was just so good...I'm totally craving it now. Then we walked around the city and found the Palacio de la Aljafería which was built in the 11th century. We also saw the Plaza de Toros. After our siesta we walked around the city and night and Zaragoza is a city that was made to be lit up. There are floodlights everywhere. The basilica and river were just so amazing all lit up at night. We were so glad it had stopped raining, so that we could enjoy the time out.

By Sunday morning though, I was ready to go back to Madrid. Zaragoza was a really nice small-ish city, but I just feel more at home in Madrid now. I know that it may not sound like we did anything super exciting while we were in Zaragoza, but I think what made the trip so much fun was that the five of us really got to know each other. I mean, I've only known Sonya, Kate and Rachel for two weeks (and met Christina the morning of the trip!) but all of us just get along so well that I'm pretty sure we're going to stay friends even after this semester ends. Also this trip showed me how easy and relatively inexpensive it can be to travel. Now I just want to stop going to school and wander around Spain for the rest of the semester!

So here are the photos from my journey. I'm sorry but I didn't have a guide book for this trip, so my captions aren't super informative. Anyway, click on any/all of these links to see Zaragoza:
The Road to Zaragoza
Around Zaragoza: Day 1
Around Zaragoza: Days 2 and 3
Zaragoza at Night
Zaragoza Graffiti/Wall Art

School

Hi all,

Well, I started school yesterday. I know, I don't sound very excited about it, but that's just because yesterday was strange. We were supposed to have an orientation yesterday and then start classes today. Then we got to school and they told us that we would be starting classes on Monday. Oh. So yes, I had to sit through all four of my classes yesterday even though I was totally unprepared and technically not registered for any of them.

Everything actually turned out all right. I met a lot of new people yesterday and found a few that I think I'm going to get along with very well. I have all four of my classes on Monday (from 10-2), three on Tuesday and Wednesday (from 10-1), NONE on Thursday, and one on Friday (12-2). It's a rather bizarre schedule seeing as how I have my language class for an hour on Monday and then two hours on Friday, but things in Spain are just kind of like that--just a bit different. I really like my literature and art history professors. At first I thought my history professor might be a bit boring, but he is really passionate about history, so I'm warming up to him. I have to make up my mind yet about my language professor. All of the girls love him, but I just don't know...it's probably not so much him, but just that I'm the least confident about that class.

University classes in Spain are very different than what I'm used to in the U.S. Pretty much almost all of my grades are determined by one final exam (like about 95% of the grade is the final, maybe 5% is attendance) except in my language class where we have a midterm and a final. My classes are almost 100% lecture as well. There's very little student participation. For me that's a bit difficult as 1) I usually have an opinion (especially about literature) and I want to voice it and 2) it's really easy for me to let my mind start wandering and then get off track...and it's just so hard to get back on track in a foreign language. I thought it would be difficult having all my classes in Spanish in a row, but it's actually a bit easier. That's because the longer I sit there listening, the more the language embeds itself in my head.

It was my birthday yesterday. I had an ISA meeting at night and the ISA directors made me a card. After that Julie, Sonya and I went out for dessert and found this cute little plaza with a statue of Federico Garcia Lorca (one of my favorite Spanish poets/playwrights) in it. The picture accompanying this post is one of Julie (right) and Sonya (left) with Lorca.

School and Real Madrid

Hi everyone,

Today was a good day. The sky was blue again and the temperatures hovered around 40. (Sorry to all of you in Wisconsin with temperatures that are like -40.)

In the morning I decided to take the bus to school to see how long it would take. Once I got to campus I just walked around for a while. Even though the buildings aren't the prettiest ones I've ever seen in my life (they aren't the ugliest either), I really liked the atmosphere on campus. Because I was off of the busy streets, everything seemed to be a bit more relaxed and I just felt really comfortable there. I think it's probably because school is familiar thing for me and I pretty much know what to expect with it (even if it will be a little different than what I've done before). One thing I especially liked about campus, other than the view of the mountains, was all of the graffiti. I think it's funny that the UWO administration freaks out about sidewalk chalk; they would have a fit if they saw all the graffiti here. The graffiti is so political in nature...and I guess I just have a different view of it since I read Julio Cortázar's short story "Graffiti."

I had planned on going to two museums after going to campus, but it was just such a nice day out that I didn't want to be stuck indoors. Instead I took the metro down to a part of town I hadn't been before. It was a more commercial area than the other parts of the city that I've seen.

After wandering for a while, I finally stumbled on what I was really looking for--El Estadio Santiago Bernabéu: Home of the Real Madrid fútbol team. Quick side note: I had never really followed soccer until last year and the reason I became so interested in Spanish soccer was because I did this project on the social and political history of Soccer in Spain for my Spanish Civilization class. Anyway, I decided I should take the tour because I wasn't going to the museums and it was a great decision. That stadium just had so much energy. This Italian guy became my tour buddy and we had a blast. A lot of people will probably hate me for saying this, but this stadium was 100x more interesting than Lambeau.

After that I took the metro home and was starving because it was after 4 and I hadn't eaten since 10, so I did something I'm a bit ashamed of--I ate at McDonalds. But I only did it because it was practically right outside of the metro station! It's good to know though that half-way across the world french fries and McNuggets taste the same.

Here are my pictures from today: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2124089&l=cf13b&id=71208608

Oh! And I'm very excited for tomorrow because I get to meet the rest of the kids from my program. Hooray!

Exhausted...

Hi everyone,

Today I discovered the maps in my guidebook are not to scale and because of that I did a lot of walking--all around what the book calls Bourbon Madrid and then back to the Puerta del Sol (just to see if I could make it there on foot). So here's the link to all of today's pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2123913&l=d3ac5&id=71208608

Enjoy!

More wandering...

Last night I decided that I was going to find the Templo de Debod today and I did! It's an Egyptian temple from 200 B.C. that was given to Spain and it was tiny but also very interesting. In the process of finding it I stumbled across the Plaza de España and a statue of Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz. I think that Sor Juana is one of my favorite women from history and if you've never heard of her you should google her and read some of her poetry.

After finding the temple I took a long walk back to Calle Mayor and Puerta del Sol because I needed to buy a few more clothing items because my luggage is still missing. It started to snow a little bit more (it had been snowing on and off all morning) and I thought it was so funny because everyone around me started walking under umbrellas. That's just not something you see everyday in Wisconsin. However, I stopped laughing once it warmed up a bit and started to rain. Then I just went home to eat lunch. I decided because I love bocadillos so much I should just make them at home myself. I bought bread, chorizo and Manchego cheese and my little sandwiches were amazing.

Later, the two other ISA students in this residencia asked me if I wanted to go see a movie with them and I did. We had quite the adventure looking for the theater we were supposed to go to, but it was well worth it because the theater had the coolest display of old movie projectors. Some of them looked like pieces of art.

Here's the link for more of today's pictures (I didn't post many because the weather was so unpleasant): http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2123801&l=982a7&id=71208608

A quick side note: I came to Madrid a week before my program actually started which is why I have all of this time to explore things. I will be starting school next week.

Gallivanting around Old Madrid

Today was a beautiful day. Blue skies and in the 40's and I am exhausted. I left my residencia at 9:45 to go to the ISA office and didn't get back until 5:30. I took the metro to the ISA office and didn't have any problems at all. It's really quite easy to figure out as long as you know where you want to go and you make sure the train you're about to get on is traveling in the direction you want to go (I almost got on the train going in the opposite direction but caught my mistake in time). The ISA people are really nice and are working hard to get my luggage back for me--yeah, it's still not here yet. After visiting the office, I bought a few things to wear, but I didn't want to spend a lot of money on clothes because I have so many that I packed. The shopping near the Puerta del Sol is pretty fabulous though and right now it is especially great because of the "rebajas," which are huge sales going on through January. It was so crowded in every store I went in and clothes were strewn about everywhere. Oh! before I went shopping I stopped in this little cafe-type-place to get chocolate con churros. Well, they didn't have the churros and I was disappointed, so I had some other sort of breakfast pastry instead and the chocolate. It was really good, but the hot chocolate was so thick. It kept me full for hours.

After shopping a bit I decided to wander up the Calle Mayor. I re-visited the Plaza Mayor (which was really empty today compared to yesterday--you can see my video of it below) and then I walked and walked until I stumbled upon the Palacio Real, which was immense. I didn't tour it though because the admission was 10 euros, but if I wait until I get my student i.d. next week it will only be 3.50 euro. Then I wandered through the Plaza del Oriente and back down the Calle Mayor. I went to a really huge music/movies/video games store and had lunch at a place called Rodillas. I got a bocadillo (sandwich) and diet coke for 5.55 euro. The bocadillo was really filling and it was called bacon with cheese, but the bacon was more like a cross between ham and canadian bacon and it had this really good spread on it. I was really excited because as I was walking home today I found a Rodillas near my residencia.

Speaking of walking home, I managed not to get lost all day until walking from the metro station to my residencia. I went up one street too far after leaving the metro station (and it never crossed with the street that I live on) and was so confused for about 15 mintues until I finally stepped into a pharmacy to consult a map.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do tomorrow yet. I had planned on going to the Prado and Reina Sofia art museums, but the ISA directors told me to "be patient" and wait until next week after I get my student ID card so I can get a discount on admission. They suggested that I go to the Templo de Debod or the Parque del Retirio (as one ISA guy said, the park is "muy muy gratis").

Check out all of the pictures I took today by visiting this link (even if you don't have Facebook you should be able to see the pictures if I set up everything correctly--if the link doesn't work let me know). And because I'm an English major I feel the need to say that all of the information in the captions is from my guide book, my friend, or ISA information...and maybe Wikipedia hahaha:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2123658&l=32e96&id=71208608