Las vacaciones (por fin)

Madrid

So, I started out this long vacation in Madrid by myself for a day. We rented this uh, well, “cozy” apartment for Christmas in the Plaza de Santa Ana. When I arrived it was gorgeous outside and all of the restaurants in the Plaza had they’re tables set up outside and waiters welcoming me to come in for a menu of the day special. It was a very lax day because I had already seen some of the things I wanted to in Madrid and I also had to figure out how to pick up the family and such. Regardless of the slow day, I did go to the Reina Sofia Museum, which is one of the three big art museums in town. This one in particular is important because it has one of the most important pieces in Spanish history which was created by this little-known guy named Picasso. The piece is called “Guernica” which is the name of a town that was bombed in northern Spain during World War II. I didn’t know what to make of it, but what was really interesting was that they had pictures of the stages of its painting and you could see how many times Picasso switched things before he finished his masterpiece. The rest of the museum was too abstract for me and I peaced out before I hit the third floor.

            The following day was the 24^th and I went to pick up my family! I was so happy to see them after 4 months. Skype is a wonderful invention, but there’s nothing like seeing someone you love in the flesh. After a great little breakfast in my favorite restaurant with the fam we headed out to kill the town! Except we didn’t at all. Jetlag hit hard and everyone paid homage to the Spanish culture and took a four hour siesta. We went out for a bit to look at the Christmas markets going on in the Plaza Mayor and other small little plazas but the rain put a damper on that. We also went to the Mercado de San Miguel which is this cool little indoor market where you can buy a bunch of different fresh baked goods, olives, and of course, wine. We grabbed some cheap wine and went back to flat to dry out and watch the Schultz family classic, Elf.

            Christmas day came and Charlie, Pete and I got these really nice sweaters from my parents. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to fit mine in my luggage to London so she’ll be waiting for me back in the States. We headed of to mass at la Iglesia de San Sebastian, which is the most I’ve understood at a Spanish mass so far. The priest talked about how we need to find the light in our life like the Magi found Jesus and other things that I had a tough time completely translating to the fam. After that, we just kind of bummed around the city in a light rain until we met up with Marina, Charlie’s Spanish friend from a couple years back. We stopped into a nice little café and caught up whilst having some café con leche (coffee with milk for you n00bs). After that we made our way to an Argentinian steak house and had an awesome Christmas dinner. Nothing welcomes baby Jesus to the world like a perfectly-cooked Kobe steak.

Valencia

            The next morning we figured out the Metro to get to our train. I must say, I was extremely impressed by the high-speed trains in Spain. We were cruising at a cool 180 MPH and it didn’t feel like we were going much faster than 60. No matter how we got there, we arrived to our hotel in the old part of the city and found some breakfast. It may have been the fact that we were in the Old City or it may have been the first blue skies we had seen since my family arrived but Valencia was gorgeous. It was filled with beautiful little plazas, each with their own little churches and orange trees. Again we took a nice siesta after walking about the city while I tried to figure out my iPhone situation. After the failure which continues to be getting a new iPhone, we headed down to the more modern section of town with the Oceanarium and the Museum of Natural Sciences and Sports. These buildings are ridiculous in both size and form. I don’t know how to explain the time in Valencia, but the city was gorgeous and the pictures that Charlie and Pete will/have put up will be a testament to that. We ended up in this nice little restaurant off the main strip of the old town and got some paella. Valencia is supposed to have the best paella in all of Spain and I have to agree. It was easily the best paella that I’ve had in my time in this country.

            After dinner we ate some helado (it’s just gelato, but Spanish) and walked down to the Town Hall. They had an ice rink out and boy did we have some fun watching these Spaniards try to skate. The best way to describe it was tiptoeing on blades and somehow catching enough of an edge to lose balance. We then grabbed a few more drinks and talked for a while before heading back to the hotel. Charlie, Pete and I headed out to a Cien Montaditos, which is a small little chain restaurant with cheap food and just talked a bit.

Barçelona

            Barcelona was an awesome city, there’s no denying that. Unfortunately, I don’t think we saw all of the things it has to offer. The only thing that was saw worth seeing was la Sagrada Familia (The Sacred Family), and boy was it worth it. If you’ve never heard of this church it’s been in construction since the late 1800’s and it is the masterpiece of a catalan architect  named Antoní Gaudí. I don’t quite think I can do it justice so I’ll just put up some pictures of the amazingly complex things that he was able to think of.

  

These pictures really don't show how beautiful it is.

            We went through the little museum inside the church and we read about some of his inspiration for La Sagrada Familia and he seemed to much more than just an architect. He studied the forms of a bunch of plants and took their best and most rigid aspects and was able to incorporate them into the church and some of the other buildings and parks he made in the city. For example, the inside of the church looks like a canopy in the Amazon forest and he took some ideas from trees and other parts of nature to make this image really come out. Some people think that the church is just ugly, and I think if you didn’t know what Gaudí wanted to with it you would think that too, but after you understand his thinking you realize just how incredible it really is. I’m planning to be back in Barça very soon so I’ll write some more after being there.

Zaragoza

           

            Zaragoza was a complete surprise to me. I asked multiple people, including my host family and my professors here, but no one knew much about it. It’s located right in between Barcelona and Madrid, so you’d have to figure it was a pretty important city. On top of that, one of the most important artists in Spanish history was born here named  Francisco de Goya AND there’s a church where Saint James saw the Virgin Mary come down from a pillar. All of that is in this tiny town in Aragon and no one knew anything about it!

            It was a gorgeous day with blue skies and plenty of sun when we arrived. We made our way from the train station to our hotel and along the way we saw many museums and actually one of the first bull fighting rings that has a retractable roof. Cooler than any of this was that we were situated just outside of the Old City of Zaragoza and was only about 5 minutes in walking. We got some helado and some coffee and then made our way into that old part to explore. We quickly found ourselves next to Nuestra Señora del Pilar (Our Lady of the Pillar), which was a massive and stunning church on the river. We went inside and saw some of the early paintings of Goya and some by Velázquez, many of which were being restored. What was amazing was seeing a part of the pillar that St. James saw Mary come down from during his pilgrimage but to be honest where the altar was, was stunning. It was all carved wood so it was dark, which was in stark contrast to the rest of the very bright church.

            We took a short time to rest after shopping and walking around during dusk and headed out a bit later. I was so surprised how full the streets were in such a small town, especially because it seemed like there was barely any people during the day. For dinner we went to a tapas bar that had Michelin star ratings only to find it was full. This is was no problem because right next door was another tapas bar that was just impressive, yet another problem: the kitchen was on fire. So with our tummies rumbling and feeling as if we were never going to find a restaurant my mom said that she saw some place that had some promise. It was phenomenal, we had many different types of croquetas, seafood, ham and clams and it was amazing. We left full and decided to go find a quick bar as it was my last few hours with my family. We chatted for a while and made our way back a bit late in the night and I caught a quick nap before I left in the early morning.

London

            London was insane. We stayed in a hostel right next to St. Pauls’ Cathedral and it was extremely impressive. It didn’t matter that it took me close to 12 hours to get there from Spain, I was just happy to see many of my friends again from all over world again in one place. It’s hard to categorize what we did during this week long experience so I thinks it’s just easier to list them and then you’re welcome to ask me about it later:

• Saw the fireworks during NYE behind the London Eye (it was such an awesome show, one of the best I’ve ever seen!)
• Went to Shakespeare’s Globe (unfortunately I didn’t have the cash at the time to go in)
• Walked over Tower Bridge
• London Tower
• We went to Fly Emirates Stadium (Arsenal Football Club’s stadium and Aleks went to a game…)
• Attempted to go the Winston Churchill War Rooms
• Buckingham Palace
• Saw many of the homes of the English Royalty
• Went through the British Museum (I FORGOT THE ROSETTA STONE WAS THERE AND DIDN’T SEE IT)
• Trafalgar Square
•  Parliament and Big Ben
• Westminster Abbey

There were a few other smaller things that we did, but I can’t remember them off the top of my head. It was just so amazing to see Parliament on the River Thames and more or less just see the river. Since there aren’t many bodies of water where I’m staying in Spain, I get excited when ever there’s one running right through the city.

That more or less caps off my Winter Break adventure. I just finished up my exams and my large cultural research project this month. There were a few times I didn’t think I was going to finish everything in time but some people got me back on track. I’m now sitting here with a mere 1 day left in Cáceres and I can’t believe it. Five months seemed so long on paper and now I’m packing my suitcase and not coming back in any foreseeable future. I feel like I’ve made my second home here, and possibly a second family. Between my friends from Kalamazoo struggling and succeeding here and the family that I live with, Cáceres will always be a part of me and I’ll always make sure to visit it if I happen to be in Spain. I couldn’t be happier to spend my time abroad here.

With all of that being said, I still have a month of travel here so be ready for some more frequent blogging. I’m traveling until March 2^nd with my friends Mauro, Aleks, Tyler and our English friend, Robert. Although we don’t have everything set in stone, I’m thrilled to get to spend my last month with these guys and seeing places that I’ve always dreamed of seeing. Keep your eyes on facebook or this page to see if I’ll post anything new! Also sorry Kate, I know you told Charlie to tell me I need to post more and I did the exact opposite, but I hope this helps! One more thing: I just bought a camera so I'll have more pics and more of my own more importantly!

           

           

           

Dublín, Mérida y Trujillo

In a radical attempt to not do my homework I'll let you all know about my long weekend in Ireland and a small day trip I had with my professors from Kalamazoo.

Dublin

A couple of weekends ago, Mauro and I went to Ireland to visit Maggie my cousin. She is studying abroad in a small city outside of Dublin called Maynooth where we stayed with her in her flat. On Thursday we flew out of Lisbon and after many delays and long taxi rides we made it to her place and talked for another 3 hours. It was good, and really weird, hearing so much English spoken around me even if it was in an Irish accent.

The following day we all took a train to another small city called Howthe that's on the other side of Dublin. We hiked all through this small peninsula and saw a bit of those beautiful Irish cliffs. On top of that we were able to talk with a bunch of local townies and they were extremely friendly much like the people in Cáceres, but I could actually understand everything they were saying for once. We had lunch at this pub in the middle of the trails and had this amazing chowder, aptly named Howthe Chowder. It may have been because we had been hiking for a while or that I was still tired from sleeping, but that chowder was phenomenal. It had two or three different types of fish and other seafood in there and then with a big pint of milk...couldn't ask for something better.

 That night, Maggie took us into downtown Dublin to the Temple Bar district with one of her flatmates. The Temple Bar district was exactly what I had imagined drinking at pub in Ireland to be like. It was where I had a my first true Guinness among other things. The whole district was packed, which added to the fun. Towards the end of the night we stopped by and got some taco chips (stellar french fries) and headed back on the 40-minute-long bus ride to Maynooth.

The next day Mauro and I woke up relatively early and made our way back into Dublin to tour the Guinness Storehouse, and boy did it deliver. There were seven stories talking about how it's made and all of the advertising over the years. One of my favorite parts were in the taste testing room where we got a mini pint and were told what to look for when drinking Guinness. It was really cool because they had this fog machines that had a concentrated version of the esters, hops, malts and other things that are evident in their beer. It helped pick out some different tastes, but the thing is, Guinness just tastes different in Ireland. It's so strange. It's just smoother and, well, tastes better. After looking through all of the other artifacts they had, Mauro and I received a free pint to continue 'taste testing.' It was amazing obviously and I thought it was just an awesome experience. Also on the way back we talked to a bunch of teenage Irish kids who wanted to know anything and everything about the States. They were in that funny age where they want to be super cool but are still really cute with how excited they are to meet foreigners haha.

The Black Stuff

We had a pretty chill time, just watching Christmas movies and making some enchiladas before we headed out. Lisbon was a trainwreck again getting back, partially because the Portuguese refuse to speak Spanish. Imagine that! We got back to Cáceres fine but I wish I could've stayed for longer. 

Mérida y Trujillo

This past week we had twelve or so professors from K come to Cáceres and eat at our houses and go to our cultural project sites. I never had any of them for class, but I have talked to the two chemistry profs before so I was able to meet a ton of awesome people. Everyone that came was very excited to be there and see some of us that they knew.

Their last day we went to two towns that are very close: Mérida (the capital of Extremadura, the "state" I live in) and Trujillo (a small town somewhere around here). Mérida is very rich in Roman history with many of their structures still standing and it reminded me a lot of Rome. No matter where you dig in the city there are Roman ruins and a lot of the city is under constant excavation due to that. We visited the amphitheater, the theatre, and an old Roman bridge. Up until recently, cars were still driven over the bridge but they stopped doing that to try and preserve it. After an exquisite three course lunch of paella, pork and chips, and a homemade cake we made our way to Trujillo for an hour and half.

Trujillo appeared to me to be much more interesting for some reason. It was very foggy and damn near nighttime but we toured a bit of the old city. The thing that I found to be the coolest part was that this city was the birthplace of Francisco Pizarro and Francisco de Orellana. For those of you who can't remember history of the Americas, they were two of the fiercest conquistadors who conquered the Incas and traversed the Amazon River, respectively. We saw what they're wealth was able to build with them and how there lives were beforehand. For example, Pizarro went from living in a small home in the old city to constructing a massive palace on the Plaza Mayor because why not? Our guide told us that these guys were basically insane, but I have to imagine you had to conquer a people over an ocean away that you didn't even know existed 20 years before. I just love being in cities where there's history even semi-related to the us and I thought it was surreal walking through the same streets as these men.

Well after these cool little cities we went to tapas with the profs and got to know one another even more over some drinks. Although I didn't know these people that well beforehand I hope that I can get into some of their classes if I have free time in my last year. 

All in all, I'm doing well and excited to see my fam that's coming next week. Miss everyone and if you still want a postcard, let me know! 

La Capital: Madrid y Turkey Day en España

So I decided that after about two weeks since being there that I should right a bit about my weekend in Madrid. We started out with a 3 hour "scavenger hunt" of sorts where we had to go around the central part of the city and find random bits about everything and anything. We went down to the Prado Museum (just the outside...) and el Parque Retiro for a bit that same day and it was all very pretty. I was completely surprised to see how enormous the park was. I also wished that I could've been there a bit earlier in the year to see the leaves change because it would've been soooo beautiful, but hey you can only do so much in six months, right?

After going on this scavenger hunt we finished in the Plaza Mayor and waited for a our director for about an hour which wasn't exactly cool considering it was close to freezing out. The minor annoyance subsided pretty quickly when all of our Spanish friends from years' past along with our Kalamazoo friends that were studying in Madrid showed up. We caught up for a bit before our director came and then went for some awesome tapas at El Tigre. It was nice to catch up with all those hooligans. We all went back to the hotel and got ready for a night on the town, and let me tell you it was something. We went to this seven-story...yes, seven-story discoteca and had a great time. I have never seen such a big club in my life but that may because I've really been out to them in Cáceres and Bahía isn't much to brag about.

The next day we got a absolutely delicious brunch (I guess that's what you could call it?) at this place called Miranda on la Calle de Huertas. In fact, I'm sure if you ever ask Mauro what his favorite part of Madrid was, the honey mustard pork we had has to be in the top three. We went through the Prado museum which was pretty neat, but it was more like a race to see as many painting by Goya and Velázquez as was humanely possible in 2 hours. All of that on a long day of walking the day before and going to bed early in the morning didn't exactly make it easier, but there was some very impressive things to see. Unfortunately, we weren't able to see the other huge museums around the corner because we ran out of time which is a bit said considering they contain some very important Picasso paintings.

Finally, we went through the Royal Palace and my Lord is that something. We didn't have a guide per se, but our director did a pretty good job of explaining everything along with the little plaques that were in every room haha. We only saw about 10% of the entire thing, but I'm pretty sure that everyone of the little 25 square meter rooms could've been valued pretty close to a million dollars. There was a room with 5 violins and cellos made specifically for the Spanish royalty by Antonio Stradivari. If you're not exactly sure who he is, he made string instruments in the 1600's which are still regarded as THE best in the world and every instrument he made is priceless. Then the fact that they're custom made for the king and queen makes them even crazier!

I enjoyed my time in Madrid, but I still don't know how to describe it. There weren't any cultural sites like in Granada or Salamanca but everything still felt impressive in some way. Obviously it is the capital city so it is special, it just didn't feel like the Spain I had been accustomed to in Cáceres I suppose. I'm planning on exploring it some more, but as of right now I would say that there are other places you need to go to first before you go to Madrid.

This weekend I'm going to Dublin to meet up with Maggie and I'm getting pumped! I haven't seen that chick forever and I finally get to go see the land of some of my ancestors. I'll let you know how that is after this weekend so be on the lookout for another post.

So I had Thanksgiving here, obviously, and it was very...different. I can't say that I've ever had duck patê at any of my dinners back in the US (Rowley and Schultz families feel free to back me up) nor only one plate of turkey. Needless to say, it was absolutely delicious and I still was able to get ahold of both sides of my family during their respective dinners. It was kinda hard to not be around a ton of family for the huge holiday but my friends and professors made it a worthwhile and memorable experience.

The following day I had to teach at my elementary school which is called Licenciados Reunidos. It's a semi-private (I don't understand it either so don't ask haha), bilingual school were I teach English, History, Biology and basically anything else the teachers don't feel like teaching on Fridays. My mom sent me some photos from some of the Thanksgiving dinners and I was able to make a Powerpoint and teach a bunch of classes about our cool holiday. All of the kids (and professors) were astounded by the amount of food that they had made and eaten during the day. That same day I got a history lesson about Spain's conquest of the Americas and also interviewed in Spanish about American stereotypes. We really need to stop making movies where cheerleaders and football players are the most popular students in school because that's what Spanish middle-schoolers think that high school is like haha. They also think it's weird how we always sing the National Anthem at sporting events and fly flags everywhere because they have so many protests that more flags are burned in the country than are ever put on a flagpole. The only time that many European countries seem to be proud of their country and national anthems seem to be during international sporting events, so the World Cup basically. We talked about a ton of other stuff as well, but feel free to ask me about that because at this point I feel like I've written more than anyone would want to read. Hope everyone is doing well Stateside and there's still time to get postcards if you want one! Love all y'all.

¡Hasta luego tíos y tías!

Granada y Schtuff

This weekend a few of us organized a trip to go to the city of the Granada. I know that I’ve said this for every place that we’ve gone so far, but I honestly think it may be my favorite city in Spain. The feeling of the city is just so laid back and it has its own air about it unlike Salamanca, Sevilla, or Lisbon. 

Granada is located in the Autonomous Community (basically their version of states) of Andalusia about three hours due east of Sevilla. Since it is in Andalusia there is just an overflowing amount of Arabic culture still present in the city and is even more amplified here being that it was the capital of the Arabic nation back in the day. The layout of the city is very different because it is extremely disorganized which is common with Muslim cities of the time we’ve learned. That being said I never once felt lost. Also there’s no Plaza Mayor which I didn’t realize until the end of the trip.

What makes up for it’s lack of organization and main squares is the massive Alhambra castle. It is an old Arabic castle that held the Sultan of Al-Andaluz and all of his best buds back in the fifteenth century. We toured through all of the gardens, palaces and squares that were contained in this absolutely massive castle. The palaces were very restored due to the fact that it was uninhabited for about 200 years but there are still amazing ornate rooms in every corner. The craftsmen created plaster molds and were able to fill every palace inside the walls with complex geometric patterns, while expert carpenters crafted wood ceilings that were so perfect that they never needed nails or anything to stay together. All this being said, I still think that it’s tough to choose the amazing palaces over the amazing royal gardens they had. The gardens were more than a pretty sight; every shrub and flower had a fragrance that together made your nose just as interested as your eyes. What more is that Granada is filled with pomegranates (granada is actually the Spanish word for pomegranate) and almonds, which add that other dimension of taste to the garden as well. There was definitely a reason that the Queen Isabel wanted to be buried in La Alhambra after her death.

Later that day we went on a free tour through our hostel to Las Cuevas de Sacromonte***. Our guide was an absolutely hilarious English writer that lived in Granada and taught us a ton about these caves. Essentially there are caves all over Granada because it’s a legend that all of the Jews buried their gold in the mountains before they left during the Inquisition. Hundreds of years ago people would dig all over the mountains to no avail and leave these caves that squatters would then inhabit. So all of these caves are just free housing that homeless people or just poor travelers will live in for extended periods of time. We were able to walk through some of the caves and they are very impressive to be honest. It’s definitely a cool and sustainable subculture that grow most of their own food, cook and live without any modern amenities. This would be a good point to say that there are TON of hippies in Granada that live in or around these caves. Note I said hippies, not hipsters. As you get farther into the valley most of these dwellings have been gentrified by the homeowners so they can get electricity, gas, etc. but also to prevent their houses from caving in…which happens. Although the last one happened over twenty years ago. Super cool stuff going in Granada people I tell ya.

Then on Friday Mauro and I went on another tour to walk through the city and get some more history from this awesome guide about the Albaycín, which is a huge Arabic section of the city. There were a ton of cool things about this neighborhood, from defense mechanisms of narrow streets and uneven steps to secret gardens and tapas bars. Throughout the entire city there are these waters taps that bring fresh water from the mountains via aqueducts that were made in the 9^th century by the Muslims. It reminded me a lot of Rome in that I just needed to buy a small fifty cent bottle of water and then could fill it up with crystal clear water as many times as I wanted for free.

Last, but certainly not least was the food in this city. Wow. Tapas are the absolute bomb here with an awesome fusion of the typical Mediterranean diet of Spain and the Shawarma taste of Arabia. We got some delish kebabs the first day we were there with hummus and tzaziki sauce with rice. But the best is our last night when we just went to two different tapa bars. You get a €2 (~$2.75) beer, wine or tinto de verano and get free delicious food with it. The first place we went made amazing sandwiches with fresh bread, goat cheese, onion and jamón then Argentinian empanadas and Mexican flautas…all for five bucks a person. After that we went a to an Arabic place and got some delicious falafel, shawarma beef, cauliflower, and potatoes for another 2.50. Let me say this much: a two beers with two great small portioned meals for $2.50 kicks the ass of any dollar menu or five dollar footlong any day of the week. If I ever have a restaurant/brewpub/make food for myself this is what I’ll be doing.

So basically Granada was amazing and I never felt the need to go out to any clubs because of the awesome tapa bars and friends to accompany them. I don’t know if it was the amount of hippies present or if it was because I was getting over the flu, but Granada just was such a calming and relaxing city that I hope to go to again. My phone is acting up once again so I don't have any photos of this wonderful city, but that's all the reason to come back. If you want to actually see what we did you should check out some people's Facebook pages that I came with. Hope all's well on the homefront!

Salamanca y Sevilla

Whoa, it's been close to a month since I've been on this. That seems to be a trend that I won't be breaking anytime soon. I've had a couple awesome trips so far so I'll try to catch up on those as much as possible. Also I have pictures so that will help quite a bit with what I want to talk about!

Salamanca

Two weeks ago I went to Salamanca for three days with our group. It was such a beautiful city and I really have a hard time putting it into words. I feel like I say that a lot but as a pretty awesome quote I saw spray-painted there said "All language is nothing but a poor translation" and trying to describe all of these different cities I've visited with words would be nothing except an injustice. That being said, I'll attempt to explain Salamanca the best I can, haha. First of all, the city is made for college students with half the population only being in town during the school year. La Universidad de Salamanca is actually the fourth oldest university in Europe if you can believe because I know I didn't. After Bologna, Paris, and Oxford the university there is next in line. There are a ton of bars and the night life is much more lively coming from such a town such as Cáceres.

Casual panorama of the Plaza Mayor at night.

 The facade to the University of Salamanca from the 17th Century.

We toured through the old school and were able to see some of the original classrooms. The original students weren't able to keep any notes because of the price of paper and instead would listen to their teacher lecture and have to memorize it. After all this they would be placed in a room of all of their peers and professors and be bombarded with question after question to determine if they were done with school. Mind you this was all in Latin, which they had to learn before they could even attend the university.

Sitting before the firing squad in La Capilla de Santa Barbara

Also we toured two extremely old cathedrals, cleverly named The New Cathedral and The Old Cathedral. The New Cathedral is only 250 years young and is the epitome of gothic style. Both the exterior and interiors are ornately engraved with the live of Jesus and saints that are important to the city and Spain in general. Oddly enough, many of these statues that were placed on the facade no longer exist because they fell from the aftershock of the Lisbon Earthquake of 1755. The cathedral is actually crooked with a large crack in sections due to this, which is pretty ridiculous. Also another nice little tidbit is that is the only cathedral to have the Four Fathers of both the Occidental and Orthodox Church behind the altar in the entire world. Chew on that.

The Old Cathedral is bit older, naturally, clocking in at about 800 years old and is of Roman construction. It is right up against the side of the New Cathedral and is also a very interesting church to go through, with many ancient frescos on the walls. 

We were able to meet up with my host sister Ana and her boyfriend Roberto while we were there and had a pretty awesome time with them. Unfortunately, my other host sister, Ester, was very sick and wasn't able to hang out with us. Being that half of the city is students the prices for clubs and bars were much cheaper and were tailored towards students. I would go back here in a heartbeat, but we'll see how the ol' wallet feels towards the end of my trip haha.

Sevilla

Sevilla really is something special. Many of you may not now that most of Spain was actually conquered and inhabited by Muslims for the better part of 800 years. Sevilla was the capital of their state and you have to imagine that they imparted a bit of their culture on the region. Well you would have imagined correctly. At times I had to remind myself that I was still in Spain and wasn't studying abroad in Saudi Arabia.

I kid you not, those are all pictures from the Real Alcázar in Sevilla. I didn't take a trip to Saudi Arabia or something for these pictures...I was in Spain the whole time.The palace was enormous and right across the street from the third biggest cathedral in the world after St. Peter's (Vatican City) and St. Paul's (London). These pictures really don't do justice the intricate geometric tile work that these people put into this building. Outside of the buildings were at least 5 acres of expertly-kept gardens all smack dab in the middle of one of the biggest cities in Spain. The craziest part is that this isn't a Muslim palace, it was actually built with catholic intentions in mind with many figures of the Virgin Mary and Jesus throughout. Oh, and also this is where the Catholic Kings, Fernando and Isabel, were married. 

Finally, we saw The Cathedral of Sevilla which I said earlier is the third largest Catholic church in the world. It was very cool to see in comparison to St. Peter's but it was a bit of a disappointment with the amount of renovations that were going on. That being said we still saw about 250 grams of where Christopher Columbus may or may not be kept. His body is separated all over the world so they're pretty sure it's him, but they're not positive.

I guess it could be him, seems like someone important at least.

One thing is for sure though and that is that both of his sons are buried in the church and that there is a small chapel where all of the sailors prayed before sailing into the unknown of the New World. Pretty cool stuff if you ask me. 

We also saw some Flamenco, which is a pretty big part of Andalucian culture. It's a dance which is extremely difficult to learn, a style of singing which is extremely difficult to sing, and a style of guitar which is damn near impossible to play. Just by listening to it you can tell there is some Arabic influence and if I knew much about dancing I'm sure you could see that as well. There is so much passion in the song and dance that it absolutely mesmerized me the entire time. I couldn't keep my eyes off the dancer nor focus on anything but the beautiful runs of the singer's voice. If I can find time, I'm going to try to sing like this because it just digs so deep into a person's soul and just emits raw passion to the audience. It seemed like the singer lost himself in the song a few times and sang as if he was on his own. It was easily one of the coolest things I've seen since being here. I'll try to put my video up on Facebook, it's totally rad.

Finally, I've started my project while being here which is teaching in a school. I've only been there for five hours at this point but boy is it some work. I teach 11-14 year olds in all sorts of classes like history, geography and English, sporadically switching between Spanish and English. I would be rushed to talk about the 4th of July right after explaining the layers of the Earth and then shoved into a classroom to talk about the importance of teenagers volunteering outside of school. I start up again tomorrow and, although I'm nervous because I have no plans going into it, I can't wait to talk to all of these kids about my culture because I get to feel special being the only American! Anyways, sorry for the delay on sending any postcards, I'm just awful at it. I'll get them out as soon as possible and as soon as I refind everyone's address haha. Love and miss everyone!

¡Hasta la próxima vez!

Queso, Vanguardista, y Portugal

I may have forgotten that I had a blog for the last few weeks but I'll chalk that up to being pretty busy. In any fashion, this will be my third post and it will also not contain very many pictures. I hate seeing a big block of text as much as anyone else but the sad reality is that my precious iPhone may have some water damage after an excellent weekend in Lisbon. At this point I'm praying that the power of dry rice, a Ziploc bag, and a week's worth of time can work some magic and get my only convenient mode of picture taking and going on Facebook contacting my loving family to function properly once again.

Two weeks ago I went to a cheese factory that makes one of the most famous cheeses in all the world: torta de casar. It is regarded as a Spanish delicacy and has apparently been made since a farmer way back when wanted to preserve his goat milk in the ol' Iberian Peninsula. The factory/museum smelled uh...I suppose pungent would be the best word to use. We got off the bus and could instantly smell this reeking farm which was a cross between protein powder, dirty gym socks and manure. So in that case I guess it just smelled like the men's locker room during football two-a-days. Anyway, we sat through a presentation that was difficult to understand and then finally got to see the massive amounts of cheese that they make. I'm sure you've seen my pictures on Facebook thus far, but I've never seen so much beautiful wheels as I did that day and they smelled absolutely delicious. There was different hard cheeses, torta de casar and this fantastic herbed hard cheese that I still get shivers down my spine when I think about our tasting afterwards. 

Torta de Casar: sooo creeeamy

If you couldn't tell, I loved this factory and wish that I could've bought a wheel to bring back to the States.

This same day our group went to 'El Museo de Vostell' who was part of the vanguard movement in art, or what I always thought of as "that strange, modern art that doesn't mean anything." I have to let you know, I no longer am under the same assumption after my time at the museum. Wolf Vostell was a German artist who fell in love with Spain, and in particular a Spanish woman, and decided to stay here and make art. 

¿Por qué el proceso entre Pilato y Jesús duró solo dos minutos? (Translation: Why did the procesion between Pontius Pilot and Jesus only last two minutes?

Fiebre del Automóvil (Translation: Automobile Fever)

Having a guide made this trip so much more insightful into the meanings of these works. Granted, they're still kind of out there and I had no clue what the guide said about the airplane one up there. What I did learn is that Vostell was a genius and at times appeared to be able to see the future. I'm sure that sounds crazy, but the reasoning for some of his eclectic art made sense and often times would be made years before an event would happen. For example, he made a piece that told the sad story that students would one day be hooked to radios and televisions and would just be products of mass media. While our generation isn't necessarily hooked to TV's or radio, it's hard to find someone that doesn't have their phone literally attached to their hip. Social media can be a scary thing and although it brings it closer it can block out people's true personality by claiming it to be stupid, weird, or uncool.

To end on a better note, my favorite part by far was the exterior of the building where there was a beautiful lake and other gorgeous scenery. Unfortunately, we didn't have the time to walk around the lake but this is another reason Vostell is awesome. He said that nature is it's own piece of art and bought up all this land to preserve it so people can take it all in. What a guy!

Finally, my trip to Lisbon. Because I don't have many pictures to put up because my phone is still wet I'm not going to talk to much about Lisbon. What I will say is that it was spectacular city even if it rained most of the time we were there. The culture is similar to Spain, but the language is gorgeous (and super confusing and sounds like Russian Spanish) and the fact that it was the capital city on the ocean was a huge contrast to being in Cáceres that barely has enough water to function. If you ever are able to go to Lisbon make sure you eat the seafood, and the bacalao (cod)  in particular 

Bacalhau a bráz (Bacalao Dorado or Golden Cod)

It's basically just olives, cod and potatoes, but it's fantastic. I wish I could spend more time in Lisbon, but I have a feeling my wish to see other places and lack of time abroad won't afford me to do so. 

Other quick updates: 1) I went a neighborhood cookout and it was awesome and met a ton of cool neighbors, 2) I've bought a ton of postcards from different places thus far and want to send them to people so let me know your address if you want one! 3) I'm going to Salamanca next weekend so keep a lookout for new (and shorter) post, and finally 4) sorry for the long post! I miss back home but the constant adventure here makes me want to stay here forever so if I don't come back you know why. Also since my phone is messed up, send email's or Facebook message me until further notice. Love you all and keep in touch!

¡Adiós!