Barce-ce-ce-lona

Right. Well. We had almost a whole week of just travel time after Sevilla, so Ali, Leah, Nora and I took a flight up to Barcelona on Friday. We stayed in the least luxurious hostel I’ve been in yet, which is not a critique of the hostel because it was just fine, but rather it made me realize how lucky I’ve been so far to find such great accommodations. Mostly I was just uncomfortably surprised to find that we were sharing a room with boys. Granted, they ended up being 3 of the very nicest boys I’ve ever met. They were from Brasil; Rafael spoke Portuguese, Spanish and English, JP spoke Portuguese and English, and Angelo just spoke Portuguese, so that was awkward because we couldn’t talk to him. They were really respectful of our privacy and gave us great tips on places to go in the city.

Anyway, on the first full day we walked to Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, this huge worship space that is basically a cathedral with crazy detail – figures on the outside depicting Bible stories, a ceiling like a forest canopy, and a back side that looks like it’s melting and makes you feel a little like you’re in a fishbowl or some other underwater location. It was so unreal. It’s not done yet, and they hope to start holding services there sometime this year. Then we walked to the park Gaudi designed, Guell, and ate lunch and explored the huge space. We also made the obligatory H&M visit, and were all successful.

It was really rainy the next day so we didn’t feel like doing too much, but we did make it to the Picasso museum. I don’t like Picasso much, but his early stuff was pretty cool. In the evening we went to a futbol game! It was FCBarcelona v. Oausuna (I think I spelled that right…) I don’t know anything about soccer, but it was still really exciting! With 15 minutes left in the game, it began POURING, but lucky for me and Nora, there was a lovely woman sitting behind us with her family and they had an extra umbrella, so she offered it to us and we stayed mostly dry – except all the water poured off the back of the umbrella, down my back and pooled on my chair, making me look like I’d had an accident. Whatever, it dried. In the meantime, Barcelona scored the only goal of the game so we won 1 – 0. So cool!

On Monday we went to the chocolate museum which just had the history of chocolate and its journey to Europe along with some pretty cool sculptures made from the delicious candy. It was free; that’s why we went. We then headed over to the cathedral, which wasn’t nearly as beautiful as the one in Sevilla. I think this is going to be my reaction to all cathedrals for the rest of my life, but we’ll see. In the afternoon, Leah, Nora and I walked over the Miró’s sculpture of a woman with a bird. He is another modern artist, so I didn’t really get it, but it was a nice walk and a nice day and on the way back we accidentally got all the way to the ocean, so that was cool. In the evening, we went to two more Gaudi buildings to see them lit up – the apartments that he designed and Casa Batlló, which has this gorgeous purple, green, and blue color scheme that makes it look a little like a castle for goldfish. It also has a neat curved roof.

Tuesday, our last full day, was spent in Montjuïc, which is this area on a really big hill which houses the Olympic stadium and other game fields, a fortress, and a ton of gardens and museums. We saw the stadium and then sat and ate some food we’d gotten at the market – bread, cheese, strawberries, and a chocolate croissant. Perfect! Afterwards we split into two groups and Nora and I went to the Miró museum and then sat in one of the gardens overlooking the city, where she tried to write some poetry and I tried to catch up on my journal, but we mostly just ended up chatting and sharing some of our work with each other. It was really fun. It was sunny, so there were some little lizards which joined us on the wall we were sitting on and they sunbathed with us. On the way out of Montjuïc, I noticed my bag was dripping. Turns out I hadn’t gotten the lid firmly on my water bottle and I spilled the entire thing in my bag, which means I soaked my journal and my camera, which I had put in the bag for the first time the whole trip, of course. It’s a few days later now and the camera works again, though there’s still some condensation on either the lens or the LCD screen, I can’t tell, and sometimes it decides to take photos in the negative style – like, everything that is normally light is black, and the shadows have some rainbow color to them. But it looks like it’s going to keep working for me, which is great for three reasons: 1. I love this camera. 2. It’s only a year or so old. And 3. Everything is really expensive in Europe so I was *not* looking forward to maybe having to replace it.

So anyway, I took care of that little problem and then Nora and I took the metro home (love the metro!) and got gelato (I eat WAY too much gelato here) and went to the steps of a nearby museum to eat it. We watched some little boys, probably 4 or 5 years old, kicking around an empty juice bottle until one of the museum guards, a really cute young guy, brought them a little soccer ball to play with. They promptly got it stuck up in a window with bars on it and a couple people in the area tried to help, but then the leader of the boys, a really precocious little guy who was probably older than the other two, went to get the guard who had given them the ball and the guard rescued it for them. Everyone who was watching clapped, which was cute. For our last meal, we went to this nice little pizza place the Portuguese guys had recommended which served really thin pizza. Very delicious, and reasonably priced for what it was.

The next day, we pretty much just headed home, dawdling on the way to the bus station so we could see the Arc de Triumph (no pictures due to the wet camera fiasco) and get some lunch. We took a bus to the airport in Girona, flew from Girona to Granada, and then took a bus from the airport back to downtown and were back in time for dinner! It was cool to travel and all, but it was soooo nice to be back in a city I knew and felt safe in and to be able to sleep in my own bed and eat really hearty, good food without having to PAY. Being a big city, Barcelona was really expensive. And the dollar isn’t doing well against the euro so I have to multiply everything by 1.5 to understand what I’m actually spending, and unfortunately, most of the prices are about the same here – ie, two scoops of gelato costs about 4euro, which actually translates to 6 dollars. Kinds pricey. Anyway, after I got back to Granada for even just a few minutes I realized I hadn’t enjoyed Barcelona so much because I didn’t feel secure there. Also, there were a lot of prostitutes on Las Ramblas, the main street which we were staying near, and they were really aggressive, which was kind of scary. It was also sad because they were all pretty obviously African immigrants. Social commentary much?

At any rate, classes have now started and I am crazy about one of my classes. It’s the Political System of the European Union, and the prof is really funny in a dorky kind of way, and I liked him a lot. I’m also taking Hispoamerican Literature, POE (our speaking and writing class), History of Spain from Franco to Present, and Islamic Culture in Spain. I haven’t had the last three classes yet, but I’m totally excited for both, especially Islamic Culture. It’s going to be so cool. My yoga class starts in a week too, which should be good because I’ll be in a class with other Spaniards. I hope I make some friends. All my academic classes are with other Americans. And we’ll see if it works out, but I’m trying to volunteer with a local colegio to help little Spanish kids with their homework – I think it’s English, but I don’t actually remember. I just love tutoring so I don’t really care! Today we have a tour of the cathedral here in Granada, so I hope that’s fun. I bought peanut butter yesterday and I loooove iiittt! Peanut butter and honey sandwiches, baby…

the story of sevilla

On Wednesday and Thursday our program went to Sevilla, which as it turns out has some of the most gorgeous sites ever, and I loved it. We began by visiting the Reales Alcázares, the palacio in Sevilla. It was built for a Christian king by Christian and Muslim architects, so it was a combination of the styles. I liked all the lions that were in the architecture, but overall I didn’t like the style because it wasn’t nearly as beautiful as the Alhambra. Some of the paint was left intact on the carvings, so that was kind of neat. We then had lunch together at a restaurant, which was special, especially since it was paella.

Following this, a few of us went to the cathedral during our free time, which was totally and completely mind blowing. It’s the third largest cathedral in the world, so when I walked in, my breath was literally taken away by how large it was. It was just unreal – twice as tall as my cathedral at home, at least, and with so much detail. Their high altar is enclosed by a cage, as are much of the relics and other small worship spaces it’s divided into, and it is completely red carpet and gold. It’s really unbelievable. Also, Christopher Columbus’ body is there, and I saw his sepulcher.

Connected to the cathedral is Giralda tower, which was originally constructed by the Muslims to be a tower from which the cantor called the faithful to worship, but when the Christians took over, the converted it into the bell tower. It has 34 ramps leading up it because the Muslim cantor would have to ascend the tower 5 times a day and so he rode a donkey, which is why they used ramps and not stairs. So anyway, we climbed the ramps, and the one flight of stairs at the very end to look out over the entire city. It was absolutely gorgeous. When we came back down, they were having mass in a smaller part of the cathedral, and there were so many people I couldn’t really see, but I could smell that they were using incense and that was lovely, because I love the smell of frankincense! Following the cathedral, we hit the Museo de Bellas Artes, which was nice, but I was a little tired and cranky so I didn’t enjoy it as much as I might have if I were fresh. To bed shortly after.

The next day we went to the archeological site of Itálica, an ancient Roman city just outside of Sevilla. I had no idea the Romans had made it all the way to Spain, but they did, and this was their first city. Upon returning to Sevilla, I went to el Parque de Maria Luisa with Leah, Ali, and Nora, and we poked around. Maria Luisa is the huge, gorgeous park in the middle of the city with tons of trees and lots of green, which is unusual for the Andalusia area because it doesn’t get much water. It was lovely to explore before we had lunch at another restaurant. Here is where my personal adventure started.

2 blocks into our walk from the restaurant to the Torre de Oro to take a boat tour on the river, I realized my sunglasses had fallen out of my purse when I put it down. Normally this wouldn’t be a huge deal, but Graham gave them to me for Christmas and they’re designer sunglasses and it was just so thoughtful of him that I couldn’t leave them, knowing they just had to be under my chair and we were so close. So, I thrust my jacket into Nora’s hands, told her what I was doing and ran back to get them. Found them, left again, and ran down the street as fast as I could. Now, as I was leaving the group, I saw them crossing the street at an intersection, which logically means to me that they were turning onto that street, so that’s what I did. I ran down a small winding street and found myself having to make a choice – left or right. I couldn’t see any of the group, so I asked two construction workers in Spanish if they had seen a large group of students walk by, I was looking for them. They said continue to the right, and I thanked them. I ended up at a café where I had to ask two more guys, enjoying their café con leche, if they’d seen a big group of students, and they pointed me straight ahead. This put me at a dead end and it didn’t feel quite right, so I called Nora, who told me that they hadn’t even turned on that first street, they’d just gone straight the whole way to the river. I don’t know what group of students *I* had been following, but I was now lost in Sevilla and about to miss my boat tour with my group. Nora told me to head towards the river, which felt like it might be to the left. I was right – I recognized a busy street up ahead from earlier this morning on the bus, which I knew ran right next to the river. Then I had to decide right or left, and I went left because that was the way the bus had driven that morning. I called Nora once more and they were boarding the boat and she’d tell Mark, our program director what was up. Luckily at this point I spotted the Torre de Oro between some trees, about 2 blocks away on this street, which was right next to where the boat left from. I ran and ran and ran until I got there, and I was there in time to see Nora board the boat. Mark met me and showed me the stairs to the boat, made sure I had found what I had gone back for and that I was alright. I was – just having some trouble breathing due to having athlete’s asthma and running for longer than I’m used to, which is to say, running at all. After catching my breath, which took awhile, I was able to enjoy the beautiful boat ride with commentary on the main sites in Sevilla. Did you know they had the Expo there in 92? They built some amazing buildings for it. They also have some beautiful bridges. Finally after this we visited the park once more, and the Plaza de España, both of which were very pretty, and then most of the group left for their week of vacations, and 11 of us got back on the bus to Granada. We played some Uno and slept. It was lovely.

One of my favourite parts of Sevilla, besides its beauty, was its public transportation. They have these electric trams that look like very nice trains, which run through town from one end to another. They cost a bit over a euro to ride, and we were never going very far so it didn’t make sense to ride them, but I realllllly wanted to! They also have stations with bikes all over the city that are available to rent. You put money into a machine and it allows you to borrow the corresponding bike, and then you ride it around and deposit it back at another station. All the bikes have lights and little baskets and they’re so cute!!! Everyone seems to use them too, all sorts of people. There are lots of students and tons of folks have their own bikes (mostly cruisers, so it must be a pretty flat city) which is just lovely.

Photos from my Sevilla trip can be found here: http://seattleu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2035052&l=1fcae&id=32402179

Anyhow, today I’m headed to Barcelona with Leah, Nora, and Leah. We’re going to a futbol game, and the Picasso museum and lots of Gaudi art for sure, and maybe the beach, and who knows what else. We’ll see! Updates to follow.