Tha 'Nada

(photo: hill fortress above Jaen)

This past week I spent some time planning out a trip to Granada which came to fruition in the form of a 5.5 hour bus ride from Madrid last Friday morning. I went with my housemate Carlos, and my friends Abram and Aaron. We left Madrid at 8:30 AM, and proceeded across the spanish countryside towards the famed Andalucia region. It was kind of overcast and foggy, so we didn't get a lot of good views on the way there, but we did have some good sun on the way back.

What a beautiful place! First, I'm not sure if I had ever really seen an olive tree before, at least not knowingly, but after this trip I won't ever forget what they look like. There were literally hundreds of miles of olive farms on the way to Granada, with all the trees spaced out and in grid-lines across the hillsides and mountains. Looking out the bus window the olive-covered hills stretched as far as the horizon at some points. I'm talking about a LOT of olives! The mountains and plateaus of the region were beautiful as well, and I couldn't help but wonder if we were following some of the same roads the Romans created centuries before.

We got into Granada at about 2:30 PM, and found that the bus system was surprisingly easy to navigate, and we were at our hostel within 15 minutes of arriving in the city. The hostel we stayed at was called Hostal Antares, and it was as perfect of a location as we could have asked for. It was literally right across the street from Granada's old cathedral, one of the architectural highlights of the city, and a fairly easy walk up the hill to the Alhambra. Not that these hills weren't steep, it's just that distance-wise it was very manageable.

For lunch I ate the biggest calzone I had ever seen in my entire life (the picture is on Facebook), and we did a little walking around the hillside communities near the city center. We spent the first night walking around some more and getting acquainted with the city, and we met Carlos' godmother and her family for dinner at a fantastic (and fancy) Italian restaurant where the waitstaff all used PDAs to take orders. Tres chic! After that we met up with a group of American students from Auburn who were also there for the weekend from Alcala. We went out to a hookah bar and had some really good tea and fun times hookah-ing it up. We ended up going to bed pretty early after that because we had heard the lines at the Alhambra got pretty long the later in the day you went.

We got to the Alhambra at about 9:30 AM, and took some pictures until our tour, which was scheduled for 10:30. Once we got in it was just one amazing sight after another. Everything, from the hand-laid stonework on the floors, to the intricately carved and painted walls, to the arabic arches and columns, to the water features, to the inredible view of Granada, everything was amazing. It was like a photographic gold mine! Altogether we spent almost two hours touring the palace and the surrounding areas, just taking it all in.

Afterward Carlos and Aaron went back to the hostel, and Abram and I took a walk through some new streets, taking more pictures. We also went to a local park and heard some live acoustic guitar, which was cool because the kid who was playing was actually pretty good. Altogether we had a really full weekend, but we are already planning out our next trip, probably to another city here in Spain. More to come mas tarde.

La Vida Española Continua

Wow! Another week has passed since my last blog. I can explain though - Spain has lots of stuff to do, and I'm no time-ologist, but I think time passes much more quickly here than in the United States. Or so it seems.

Well I'll start this one by recommending that you check out my Facebook link on the side of the page for all of my latest pictures. They include the ones from the previous weekend, as well as the most recent weekend adventure to Madrid. And what an adventure it was!

We started the weekend with the group from school, which basically included a walking tour of all the places we went with Carlos' family the first weekend, but in reverse order. We saw the opera building, the king's palace, the cathedral, plaza mayor, and lots of other interesting stuff. In the afternoon we broke off into our own groups. Some students went back to Alcala but a lot of us stayed the night. I ended up staying with my friends Aaron, Holly, Ally, Abram, and my roommate from Alcala, Carlos, in Hostal Americano (how appropriate) which was right on the plaza of Puerta del Sol in downtown Madrid. The room was quite large and suited all of us just fine except for the excessive street noise a few stories below.

We all stuck together to go out to dinner, and Abram and I walked a bunch all around Puerta del Sol for a couple hours. I got some new shoes, and we found some cool soccer jerseys too. Afterwards we all went out to a bar and tried some new spanish beers. Everyone else was tired so they went back to the hostel, but Abram and I decided that we weren't going to stay the night in Madrid without doing something fun, so we went out and met some other CSU students who were going to a club called El Kapital near downtown Madrid. It was about a 15-minute walk from our hostel, but wow was it cool!

This discoteca cost 18 Euro to get into, which included our first drink, but once we got in I quickly realized why. The club was about 7 full stories tall altogether, with 5 of those floors being dance floors, each with a different theme and type of music, and half-floors in between. Needless to say, by the end of the night I had gotten a good start on breaking in my new shoes! It was cool because with the exception of the very top floor, every other floor could see down to the main dance floor, separated only by huge panes of sound-proof glass. We ended up moving around a lot, and we were pretty tired by the time we left (~5:00 AM!), but what an experience!

The next day we slept in until we had brunch at Maria del Mar's house (our program coordinator, bottom center in the photo here). We walked around a bunch after that and went back to the central park in Madrid, Parque de Retiro. We got a couple boats and went out rowing on the lake and had a lot of fun. Since then we've gone out a couple times here, and I've been meeting new people every day. This weekend Carlos and are planning a trip to Granada to see the Alhambra and travel a bit more, but it's still in the works. Hasta tarde!

Tan mucho hacer, tan poco tiempo

Well, life has improved for me greatly since I arrived in Madrid on the 8th. My bag finally arrived, albeit 5 days late, school started on the 12th, and I am getting along great with my roommate Carlos, my host mother Isabel, and all my new friends from CSU and the other American universities. After going out a few times I am starting to get to know a few other people here as well, which is also very cool.

I am taking 5 classes at the University of Alcala, although my first class has been canceled due to myself and a girl from Auburn University being the only students who attended it on Monday. My other classes here are as follows: Cervantes and his Works, Civilization and Culture in the Hispanic World, Translation, and Phonetics. I like all of my professors so far, and it seems like each class will have some really interesting subject matter for me to learn about. Que bueno!

I am meeting new people every day and starting to get to know others better as friends. It really helps having a roommate to plan events with and talk about our experiences. We are trying to refrain from speaking too much english with one another, and we rarely do around our host mother. He and I are quickly becoming the center of our group of friends as far as planning and socializing go, in part due to our proximity to the university, plaza, and main pedestrian street here in Alcala. And while I'm on the subject I'll take some time to explain exactly what life is like here for me.

I live in a second-story apartment with another student from CSU, Carlos Escudero, and a host mother, Isabel Garces (with an accent on the E, this blog program doesn't do accents and I'm too lazy to go back through and cut and paste each one). He is a 20-year-old spanish major from Texas, and he moved to Fort Collins for school. His father, stepmom, and two half-brothers live here in Spain outside of Madrid, and I had the pleasure of meeting all of them last weekend when we took an excursion to the city. Isabel is a grandmother whose children and grandchildren live here in Alcala and Madrid. I haven't met them yet but she has many pictures and has told Carlos and I a lot about them and they sound very nice. The apartment is in the old city center, and so is very antique-y but in a good way. Most of the flooring is tile, and there is some cool tile and woodworking on the walls and ceiling as well. My room is actually pretty big compared to what other students have said, and Carlos and I share a bathroom. A maid comes twice a week to clean because Isabel has some problems with her back, but she cooks three meals a day for us and does our laundry once a week. She is the nicest lady, very patient, kind, and quite an amazing cook. Really Carlos and I could not have asked for a better situation, and in comparison to what other students have told us we really lucked out.

Our apartment is really very close to just about everything we need here. It is only a 7-minute walk to our classes at the university, a 5-minute walk to the Plaza de Cervantes, a 12-minute walk to the train station that goes to Madrid, and no more than a 5-minute walk to any of the bars and cafes we have been to so far, depending on which one we go out to. This is in comparison to some people who have to either take a bus to get to the plaza and surrounding area, or walk for up to half an hour. Fortunately, except for the teenage wanna-be spanish gangstas (I came up with a new word for them: spangstas), the city is very safe to walk around in, even at night.

We went out a couple times last weekend, and our favorite bars are the Continental, Casa Roja, the Music Bar, and the Can-Can. And when I say "bar", it has a little bit of a different significance here than in America. Most bars in Spain are more like pubs, as they all serve food, and are also places to come out and socialize and have a coffee or other non-alcoholic drink. The cool thing about Alcala is that it is like Granada with respect to the tapas culture. If you order a drink, you automatically get tapas with it for free, and each bar specializes in a different style of tapas. This is really handy for between meals, as the tapas generally are not huge portions but make for a tasty snack. The only bar that is not like that as much is the Can-Can, which is more like a club atmosphere (una discoteca). We have only been there once, but ended up staying out and dancing until it closed at 6 AM. Yeah, crazy, but also very fun and different. We are starting to make friends with the bartenders at the Music Bar too, and they even came out to Can-Can with us after they shut down at 2 AM. I think the reason there is a bar culture such as this here is that people don't really go to each other's houses to hang out very much at all, so if you want to see people you have to find a meeting place. And with the weather being what it has been here lately, going out for a stroll is not a comfortable option. Speaking of which...

It snowed a little more today, which once again slowed down business and traffic in the surrounding area. It has also stayed very cold here, which has kept all the sidewalks very icy and an adventure to walk on. No one owns snow shovels because it really never snows here (except for in the last week). There were guys with pickaxes clearing the ice from the steps of the university when I went to class yesterday. In any case, Isabel gave Carlos and I matching scarves to wear today, which was really cool (or warm rather). I am going to buy a scarf here when we go shopping tomorrow, it really helps, especially with the wind. Not to mention scarves are all the rage here right now, with about 75% of people wearing them when it is cold.

There are a lot of things I'm still getting used to, especially the prices of things, although taxes are included in the prices and tips are almost unheard of, which is nice. I am walking around a lot, and trying to take pictures when I can, although I still haven't brought out my DSLR camera much yet, partially due to the weather. I am getting used to my phone, and I did purchase an international phone card, so I will be making some phone calls today and the next few days to reconnect with people. If you would like me to call please email me (chimichanga18@yahoo.com) with your phone number. My phone from the states has died and I somehow spaced packing my charger, so I have no access to the phone numbers in it as of right now. Also, if you would like a postcard or a letter, include your address as well. I would like to call and write to people, but was in too much disarray before coming here to have the foresight to get all of this information from everyone. I will be updating this blog with pictures and more info fairly frequently from here on out, so feel free to "follow" it (the option at the top of the page) if you are curious to keep up with me and my spanish adventures. Until next time,

shantron5000

I made it to Spain, my bag has not

After a horrible flight on Iberia Airlines from Chicago to Madrid, I finally made it to Spain. I puked 5 times on the plane, yes, 5 times, including right as the plane was touching down on the runway, using all three vomit bags and both restrooms in the rear of the plane. I chalk this up to the fact that the food sucked a lot but I still ate it, the fact that I was in THE WORST seat on the plane (last row, very center, no windows), and the fact that the turbulence was unrelenting for almost 5 hours. Yeah, it was that bad. At least I didn't puke on the floor like other people were doing. So other than all that, the flight was great! Oh except for that after waiting an hour and a half at the baggage claim my backpack was nowhere to be found. Yep, all in all that was the worst traveling experience of my entire life. Period. I am in Alcala now though, and much like the movie, it's a wonderful life. I should be receiving my backpack in the mail tomorrow, and the last of my traveling woes will be behind me.

My host mother Isabel is very nice and a wonderful cook, and my housemate Carlos is cool too. Fortunately he has been kind enough to lend me a shirt and a jacket for me to use until my luggage arrives. I like the apartment I am in a lot too. It is in the historic center of Alcala, caddy-corner to the enormous house of the cardinal magistrate, one of the architectural highlights of the city, and only an 8-minute walk to the university. I will be posting pictures once my other bag arrives.

Also of note is the fact that it snowed 3 inches here today, a remarkable event considering the last time they had snow here was 4 years ago, and it didn't even stick. Everywhere in the city today people were taking pictures and throwing snowballs, and judging from their awkwardly misshapen two-sectioned snowmen it was obvious that heavy snow was not a normal occurrence in this part of Spain.

I did get a phone today (680.223.106, country code 34) if you would like to contact me. All incoming calls are free for me, but I will need to wait until Monday to call anyone, as I have not yet purchased more minutes or an international calling card for my phone. If you do call, just remember that I am 8 hours ahead of Colorado time.

So far everyone here has been very nice and accomodating, both the other students from CSU and the faculty of the university here. I will be starting classes on Monday, and look forward to seeing how those will go. I miss everyone back home but want you all to know that I am doing fine and enjoying my time here. Until the next update, ciao!

On my way to Spain... sort of.

Hello all! Well, since I am a bit delayed in my travels I figured this would be a good opportunity for me to make good use of my time and start blogging, so here I am.

As the title of this post implies, I am indeed on my way to Spain, but thanks to American Airlines' incompetence, for the second time in a row now my departing flight was delayed to the point that no connecting flight could be made. And so, as was the case with my return from Costa Rica, I am now holed up in a hotel in a city I never intended on staying in, which this time is Chicago. Great. The only difference is that this time I had to pay for the room (they gave me a whopping half off, how generous!). In any case, at least I'm not bitter about it, right? Right??

I always try to look at the bright side of things while traveling because it's all vacation to me, but it is still very frustrating. I will make it to Spain eventually though, just not when I thought I would. So here I sit in my cozy, half-price, handicap-accessible Holiday Inn hotel room, typing away, while the snow outside keeps on piling up, threatening to delay my travels further. I suppose I will be updating this tomorrow if I have a chance, otherwise it won't be until I arrive in Madrid on the 8th. Off to a good start though. Sweet!

Keep an eye out here for more photos and ramblings, it seems this will be a much better way to put information about my travels out there than Facebook status updates. Hasta luego!