Free to Look

Shopping is fun, and I will admit that I almost every trip I take contains some shopping component, but Marrakesh took the shopping experience to a whole new level. In the souks, or local markets, shopping is an interactive, high-inducing, emotional roller-coster. Really, I have never done anything like it. First, you have to be able to picture the scene: narrow back alleys that refuse to go in a straight line. Lines of small shops filled to the brim with bright colors and air wafting the exotic scent of incense while people, motorcycles, and donkey-draw carts fight for space in the narrow streets. The people around speak Arabic, French, Spanish, English, German, and surely more. As you walk by the shop owners call out greetings in all languages in the hopes of catching your eye and ushering you into their shop. This madness goes on indefinitely and a foreigner could wander the twisting streets for hours without ever emerging. It is truly other world.

Friday afternoon I got my first taste of the souks and Saturday afternoon two friends and I plunged into an unknown alley to begin our shopping earnest. There are several different types of shops. There are the shoes shops that sell the Aladdin-like pointy-toed slippers as well as some many other leather slippers and sandals. Then there are the wooden-goods stores with jewelry boxes, small figurines, and beautiful bowls. Jewelry was also very popular. Some was delicate silver earrings and bracelets while other shops featured heavier, stone necklaces that the shop keepers said were from the Berber tribes of Africa. My favorite were the textile shops - endless amounts of pashmina scarves, bedspread, kaftan shirts, and more. The colors were incredible.

Souk shopping is exciting because you have to bargain for what you want. To not bargain is an insult. Now, I have never bargained before and I was more than a little nervous about it, but I had read a lot on the Lonely Planet message boards and was armed with some useful tips. In case you're headed to Morocco anytime soon, here they are: 1. Since you're a foreigner, seller inflate prices ridiculously. Begin bargaining with 1/3 of the asking price. 2. Don't get angry and be rude. Bargaining is part of the buying process and shop keepers take kindly to those who seem to be having fun. 3. Never offer a price if you're not willing to buy at that price. It's incredibly bad etiquette to name a price and then decide you don't really want it. 4. The sellers will never go below a price they are willing to pay, so if they're not budging just walk away.

It took me a little while to warm up, but pretty soon I was bargaining all over the place. I am SURE I got cheated, but everything was still pretty cheap and I honestly cannot remember an afternoon that was more fun. As my friends and I walked past the different shops, the men tried all sorts of tactics to make us try and stop. My personal favorite was the one who yelled "ugly girl, ugly girl - look over here!" Needless to say, I didn't look. Another good one was "free to look." The shop owners would come up to us in the middle of the street and remind us that it was free to look, wouldn't we just take a peek to make them happy? When I was interested I would wander into a shop, answer the owner's greeting, and insist I didn't want help (smiling the whole time). The men were not so easily persuaded, however, and if they saw me eyeing a shirt they would pull it off the hanger and try to put it on me. The first time this happened, I vehemently said no and skedaddled, but after a few stores I realized this was just the way it worked and did try on a few things. I always tried to ask how much something cost before trying it on, but the men would just say that it was a "democratic price" and ignore me. After I tried it on and decided I liked it, they would finally, finally list a price. Of course, it was ridiculously high. I would laugh and give a ridiculously low price. (At least, I thought it was ridiculously low - I never was quite sure of the value of anything). I'd go up a little and then just keep saying that price. They'd come down a little, I'd go up a little more (I always ended up giving in before they did) and then if they still didn't like it I'd begin to walk away. That's when they would call after me, I'd return and we'd settle on something we were both happy with. The whole thing really was a rush, although, like I said, I'm sure they still cheated me.

There were some negative experiences (one guy got really, really angry and wouldn't let me friend go when she decided she didn't want something) but there were also some really positive ones. We went around a corner and these three guys thought it would be really funny to wrap scarves around us in the Berber style. At first we were terrified, but I think they meant well and it was all in good fun (nothing got stolen and they didn't make us buy anything). There was also a guy who wrote our names in Arabic and another who professed his love for us. By the end of the day I was exhausted and my wallet was a lot lighter, but it was an awesome afternoon.

Marrakesh, Morocco!

Today's story is that of last weekend's journey to Marrakesh, Morocco! I realize that this blog is supposed to be about Madrid and I have, in fact, rarely talked about the beautiful city I live in, but I promise to do better after this post. It's just that my travels are so exciting that I can't help but talk about them. It will be easier to do better in the future because I don't have any more trips planned until I head to Greece (woo-hoo!) at the end of December...

Ok, first of all, Morocco was exciting because it was AFRICA. Of course, it's not at all like sub-Saharan Africa, but it still counts. That means I have now been on three different continents! My flight left ridiculously early in the morning (6:25). In order to save myself the (financial) pain of taking a taxi by myself to the airport, my friend AJ stayed the night in my house and we split the cab at 4:30 AM. Oh the joys of budget travel. The flight was uneventful, but when we landed in Marrakesh it was clear we were no longer in Europe. It was HOT. Every day the temperature was well about 80 and it was a bit of a shock to my system after the mildness (we're still hovering around 50 and 60) of Madrid. It turned out to be more of a process than expected to get through customs. Since we were Americans (oh yeah, the "we" mentioned periodically is me and the 15 other people I traveled with. Everyone was scared to go to Africa without a big group, but it turns out we needn't have worried) we had to get some weird extra stamp - I think it stated that we were healthy and fever free. They knew this because we had to walk by a heat-detecting machine! Cool, huh? Then we had to go through customs itself. There was another form and another stamp and then we were through! I was pretty excited about the new stamp in my passport! The next step was to exchange our money. Morocco uses the dirham (which some of my friends insisted on calling "dinghys" all weekend). 10 dirham is roughly equal to 1 Euro (and 1 Euro is equal to 1.5 dollars). My mind spent the whole weekend translating dirham to Euros to dollars so that I could actually figure out what I was paying for something and I kept getting so confused. It's really startling when someone asks you for 200 dirham because first you think that's outrageous and then you think "oh, that's not bad, it's only 20 bucks" and then you have to correct yourself and say "oh, no, it's $30". By then end, I was happy to return to just making one conversion in my head.

After the money nonsense we headed by bus to the hostel. The hostel is not really accessible by car (!) so we got off the bus on the edge of the medina, or main square. At 8 in morning it wasn't very busy but tons of dried fruit stands and orange juice stands were already in business. The snake charmers and men with performing monkeys were also getting going! I actually couldn't believe the directions to our hostel. They said things like: at the big open space, take a left. Follow the alley until the blue door and then turn right...Surprisingly enough, we made it without a problem although there was a very persistent Moroccan man who wanted to take us there (and then get tipped) and we had to actually yell at him and he still followed us to hostel. The hostel was beautiful, though. In Morocco if you don't stay in a really nice hotel you'll probably stay in a converted Moroccan home. Ours had a pretty tiled courtyard and rooms with pointed arches and pillows on the floor. Plus, the free breakfast on the rooftop terrace was delicious!

After dropping our stuff, we hit the ground running and got back on the bus to go for camel rides. It was really, really cool even though it was completely touristy. The bus dropped us off on the side of the highway and there were men waiting with camels. We bargained the price down to 60 dirham (it started somewhere in the 300s) and the men had the camels kneel down and then helped us climb aboard. It was two people to a camel and we were on a boxey saddle that had a big metal loop in front that we could hold for balance. Although some people were hesitant at first (camels really are very large), in the end everyone decided to give it a try. My favorite part was when the camel stood up because there was this tremendous lurch and then you were several feet off the ground! The men running the organization were really nice and kept asking for our cameras. At first we were hesitant, but they just really, really loved to take pictures and I have some nice documentation of my time on a camel thanks to them. I also have to mention the baby camel who was possibly the cutest animal I have ever seen. Its feet were hobbled so it couldn't run away, but as we began our trek around the "park" (aka wasteland) it hobbled after the group in the most adorable manner imaginable. It clearly did not want mama to get too far away. We rode for about 20 minutes and then had the exciting lurch back to the ground. It was agreed all around that camels had been an excellent idea (and I have to admit I had been more than a little hesitant at first).

After that was lunch and then our first journey in the souks. I'm getting tired so I will write more fully about the souks in the next post (whoops, so much for the whole no-more-out-of-Madrid promise). What matters here is the dinner we had Friday night. We went to this really touristy and pretty expensive (the source of some tension, but we did get through it) restaurant. If you've ever eaten in "Morocco" in Disney's Epcot, you've basically been to this restaurant. All the walls were tiled, there were candles and rose petals on the table, and half of the chairs were couches. As we dined our way through an incredible five course meal we were treated to traditional Moroccan music, singing, and dancing. The dinner lasted well over 2 hours and it was an experience. We had this "salad" that was really a bunch of different cooked vegetables (no eating raw veggies because the water there can make you sick), fresh sweet bread, couscous, a chicken tangine (a stew-like dish), mint tea (a Moroccan specialty made with endless amounts of sugar), and dessert. I'm really glad we went, but it was sort of poor timing on our part because we had gotten up at 4AM to get to Morocco and the dinner didn't end until almost 11 so most of us were fading at the end. I believe a few people actually fell asleep on the couches, but, hey, what can you do? And all this was only the first day!

A weekend of culture!

I am so behind! I always mean to post about everything, but then somehow two weeks disappear and I have no idea where the time went. Ah well. The story today is that of Barcelona! I went with the program (which was wonderful because everything was already paid for) over Halloween weekend. We get every Friday off here so we left Friday morning and our directors randomly let us take Monday off so we returned Monday night. It was a fantastic trip and I loved Barcelona. Madrid feels more down to earth and I'm happy to be living here, but Barcelona is a fantastic place to visit.

Part of the reason I enjoyed Barcelona so much was because it made me feel cultured and sophisticated. Through my romps across Spain with Americans from all corners of the country, I have learned that I'm a little lacking on the culture front. My knowledge of art is almost non-existent, I have little to say about music, and when it comes to ordering at a classy restaurant, I usually guess and hope for the best. Though I'd love to believe this is part of my charm, I'm also excited to say that my knowledge on all fronts is improving. Barcelona was particularly helpful in the arts department!

So one of the first things I learned in Spain is that there is this really famous Catalan (from Cataluna, the autonomous community encompassing and surrounding Barcelona) architect named Gaudi and people all over love him for his whimsical and captivating buildings that helped revolutionize architecture. I was particularly fond of his use of the parabola-shaped arch. Anyway, Guadi has a ton of buildings in Barcelona and I think I saw almost all of them. First was Casa Batllo. This house was comissioned by some rich family and Gaudi took his inspiration from the sea. There were tons of blues and greens and all sorts of details that made me think of waves and bubbles and other underwater touches. Next, I saw La Sagrada Familia (aka the Sacred Family). It's Gaudi's cathedral and, although it was started over 100 years ago, it's yet to be finished. Apparently Gaudi went a little crazy towards the end of his life and lived in the construction site that was the church until he died. He'd become such a recluse at the time of his death that no one even realized he was no longer alive until days later. The cathedral was really neat and my friend and I took an elevator way up to the higher levels and got to look out at the city. Then we had to climb this dark, narrow spiral staircase all the way back down. The walk down stressed me out, but the view from the top was worth it. After that (remember this was spread over four days) I went with some friends to La Pedrera, an apartment building Gaudi designed. The coolest thing here was the terrace (fancy rooftop) because there were crazy turrets and designed and, again, the view was incredible. Finally, I went to Park Guell which, as you might guess, is a park designed by Gaudi. My favorite part was the really over-the-top fountain with mosaic chameleon that gaurds the entrance. All in all, I can safely say I left Barcelona Gaudi fan.

Barcelona is not only great for building art, but museum art as well. I visited the Picasso museum (I guess there are a lot, but this has a ton of his stuff). The museum focuses on showing Picasso's development as an artist so it doesn't have so many of his super famous paintings, but a lot of stuff from his early years and all the things he worked on before he got to cubism. I particularly liked his blue and pink periods! See, that just makes me sound cool to be able to say things like that. Weird side note: in the Picasso museum we ran into two girls from Hamilton who aren't in the program, but who just happened to be studying abroad in Europe and in Barcelona for the weekend. So random! I also visted the Salvador Dali museum in Figueras (about 2 hours away from Barcelona). Before visiting the museum I didn't think I was a big fan of Dali, but it turns out he is super cool. The only painting I'd know of his were all the melting clocks, but Dali has some really beautiful paintings of his wife, Gala, that I loved. They're still surrealist, but not quite so random. The museum was probably the neatest museum I've ever been to because it was a converted theater and was filled not only with Dali's painting, but with all his many types of art. If I understood out guide correctly, surrealists take everyday objects and turn them into art. This means that the museum was filled with things like cars that rained and a portrait of Mae Wes made out of furniture. It was unlike anything I've ever seen before, but if you're headed to Barcelona, it's worth making the trip to see this museum!

My weekend of culture finished up with a Spanish Guitar concert in the Palau de Musica. An incredible building (unfortunately not designed by Gaudi), it was filled with mosaic-tiled pillars and lots of color. The guitarrist was increidble and I'm so glad my friends and I waited in line for the 1/2 it took to get tickets.

I can't really think of any kind of clever closing (not that I ever do), but I'll just reiterate that my weekend in Barcelona made me so happy to be in Europe and not in the cold countryside of Hamilton!

The GUGGENHEIM (oh and a little of Bilbao too!)

And the journey continues…After our San Sebastian pinxtos crawl we woke up to another beautiful morning and headed back to the bus station to catch the 11:30 bus to Bilbao. There was a mild amount of stress involved in this since we hadn’t already purchased our tickets, but we found the office and bought our tickets with a whole five minutes to spare. Our main reason for going to Bilbao was the Guggenheim Museum. There are four Guggenheims around the world (Bilbao, New York, Berlin, and Venice) all housing artwork collected by the Guggenheim Foundation. The museum in Bilbao is probably more famous for its architecture (designed by Frank Gehry) than for the actual art inside. I can’t really describe the building, but you can look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Guggenheim-bilbao-jan05.jpg to see a picture. Very cool. What you can’t see in this picture is that there is an awesome playground just to the side of the museum. My friends and I spent a good 25 minutes on the playground before actually devoting our attention to the museum. I have seen a lot of lame playgrounds in Spain, but this one was truly awesome. It had structures covered in webbed rope that you could climb on and we had lots of fun (and took lots of pictures) as we climbed. After asking a very nice man to take a picture of us all posed dramatically, we headed over to the museum. We took a 360 degree tour around the building and even walked to a nearby bridge to get a better perspective. Outside the museum there is a giant statue of a spider (it’s got to be 20 or 30 feet tall) and a HUGE puppy sculpture that’s made out of living flowers.

One of the best surprises of the day was that we got into the museum free – it was the 12th anniversary! My favorite exhibit in the museum was the installation A Matter of Time by Richard Serra. I liked it because it was interactive. Serra took large, metal sheets and formed different kinds of shapes (ovals, curvey lines, etc.) that you could walk through. It was very cool because each one was 3x the average height of a human and you just had to enter and follow the path wherever it led. Talking in them was also an experience because the echoes created by the unusual walls were amazing. Most of the second floor was closed which was a bummer, but there were some neat paintings on the third floor. I went around with my friend Harriet, who is an Art History major and it was great because she could give me the background on a lot of the artists and what to look for each painting. I want to go to more museums with her!

After the museum we took the Eusktram (Bilbao’s coolest public transportation) to the old part of town and wandered for an hour or so. I feel as though I say this all the time, but it was so pretty! Really, the towns here are gorgeous and I never have enough time to do them justice. Lots of cobblestone streets and cute shops and old people in hats and scarves walking around. Really picturesque. Before heading back to the bus station we stopped at a grocery store to grab food for dinner on the bus. In the United States I love grocery stores, and it’s not a passion that has gone away in Europe. I had to restrain myself from buying a lot of things that I didn’t need, but I did pick up a box of Special K granola bars as a healthy snacking option in Madrid.

We returned home to Madrid (after a half hour dinner stop at some random restaurant in the middle of nowhere) before midnight. Oh! I almost forgot – there were movies on the bus ride home. I watched (and understood a lot of) Ocean’s 13 in Spanish, which was terribly exciting. Although brief, it was a great trip with very fun people and a lovely way to spend the weekend.

Do you speak Euskara?

Last weekend 4 friends and I headed north to El País Vasco or, as those of you in the states may know it, Basque Country. For the most part I am not planning my own journeys around Spain because the program takes us to almost every region, but the Basque Country is one place where we don’t go. My theory is they’re scared of terrorists (there is a small radical group in Basque Country known as ETA who wants independence from Spain and are willing to be violent to make their point) but my friends and I didn’t see any suspicious characters while there. In fact, the people were incredibly kind and I loved the two cities we visited: San Sebastian and Bilbao (rhymes with cow). Every region of Spain is distinct, but there is particularly strong regional pride among the Basques. One thing that keeps this pride alive and well is the fact that they have their own language – Euskara. It’s possibly the oldest language in Europe and no one knows its origins. Cool, right? It was a short trip, only one night, and my friends and I left early Saturday morning by bus. The bus wasn’t exactly cheap, but we all felt better about what we paid once we realized the bus had a stewardess and snacks! We were a little over-excited if truth be told, but college kids are known for their love of “free” food.

We went to San Sebastian first and after a slight mishap with the city bus (we accidently got on the bus in the wrong direction and rode the entire length of the city and then had the bus driver make fun of us) we arrived at our hostel. San Sebastian is right on the coast of the Cantabrian Sea and has its busy season in the summer months when tourists from all over flock there for the beautiful beach. It was 50 degrees or colder the whole time we were there so it’s fair to say that we were definitely in the off-season. This became clear to us when, at the hostel, no one answered the door. We called the owner and she informed us that she was on vacation, but that her son would be coming shortly to let us in. It took him a little while to arrive, but we entertained ourselves by taking bets on the potential age of the son. When a 40 year old rode up on his bicycle, we were all a little disappointed. The hostel was on the fifth floor and it was clear that not too long ago it had been someone’s personal residence. There were some very, very funny signs in English asking us to “Please take quick showers. No washing allowed.” The son let us into our room, which was super cute and we enjoyed our bocadillos (sub-like sandwiches) packed for us by our host moms on the balcony off our room.

After lunch we set out to explore the city. We were staying in the Parte Vieja (old part of town) which undoubtedly has the most charm of any barrio in the city. The city has a large crescent-moon shaped beach and at one end of the crescent is a large hill with a statue of Jesus at the top. My friends and I walked to the top and had a lovely time ambling up the path. The views from the top were incredible! After that we headed back down and decided to walk barefoot along the beach. It was cold, but the sun was out and it’s really just a beautiful spot. Plus, now I can say I’ve been to the beach in October! This whole climbing, walking, chatting process took us several hours and we finally decided we were getting frozen (let me just remind you here that we were feeling frozen because we’ve been spoiled with the lovely Madrid weather. In reality, it wasn’t that bad with a light jacket) so we found a café and had colacao con leche caliente (basically hot chocolate). We then went on a semi-epic hunt to find an ATM and returned back to the hostel to change for dinner.

Spain is known for its tapas (small, hors devour like foods) but El País Vasco is supposed to have the best tapas in Spain and my guide book told me that within El País Vasco everyone says San Sebastian’s are superior. They call them pinxtos (pin-chos) and my guide book didn’t lie. They were delicious! Instead of dinner we did a pinxtos/bar crawl. Both my friend Harriet and I had guidebooks and we created a list of recommended bars and headed out. In the first bar the countertop was covered with pinxtos. It’s hard to describe, but image an entire bar covered in big white plates with different funny-looking foods on toothpicks. It was actually a little overwhelming and I not only did I not know what I wanted, but I was also confused on how to order! Turns out it wasn’t so difficult. The bartender handed me an empty plate and I just picked up what I wanted. I decided the best way to get the real San Sebastian pinxto experience was just to guess. I avoided anything that looked particularly fishy and also anything that I could immediately identify. I tried three different things and although they were like nothing I had eaten before, they were ríquisimo! After eating, I went back to the bartender and he counted my toothpicks and told me how much I owed. They're a very trusting people in San Sebastian. They next bar was a clearly more metropolitan and it was packed. We fought our way in and then paused, since we had no idea what to order. In the first bar, everything had been laid out for you to choose, but here the pinxtos were made-to-order. It was clear from looking around at what others were eating that the place was famous for its cooked meat. We all ordered ribs and received a beautiful little piece of steaming deliciousness. Seriously, it was so good. Plus, we split a bottle of red wine which just added to the experience. We finished up our night in a less-crowded bar where we had one more round of pinxtos and chatted until the early morning. Finally, exhausted, we headed back to the hostel to sleep.

Hospital Clínco San Carlos

For those of you who are my avid fans you may remember that several posts ago I mentioned that I’m taking a class on NGOs in Spain and one of the requirements is a 60 hour internship. I elected to volunteer with an organization called Desarollo y Asistencia. They do all sorts of great things in Madrid. I know because I had to sit through their two hour initiation session. It was very informative, but it was also a lot of very, very rapid Spanish in a hot, crowded room while I really had to go to the bathroom. In any case, they send volunteers to nursing homes, homeless shelters, and hospitals. I’ve never volunteered at a hospital before, but decided that now was as good a time as any to try it out. Actually, I picked the hospital because I wanted a site where I would be able to practice my Spanish and also because my professor said that the students who have worked with D&A in the past have had found it to be very personally enriching.

I find that I often sign-up to do something that sounds really cool and then when the moment comes to actually do the thing I get very nervous. That was absolutely what happened before my first visit at the hospital. Although I don’t have the stress of difficult classes or loads of extra-curricular activities here, there is stress built into every interaction because there is still so much Spanish that I cannot understand, and my comprehension is far worse when I’m nervous. My anxiety stemmed from the fact that I had to 1) Find the hospital and then the correct place in the hospital. I had received lengthy directions to the volunteer office over the phone (in Spanish) from the coordinator, but they were complicated and past experience has taught me that I can, at times, be directionally challenged. 2) I had to talk with a whole lot of people who I didn’t know. This always makes me mildly uncomfortable, even in English. 3) I had to visit with sick people. I HATE illnesses and doctors and hospitals. As I set off, I was cursing myself for my ridiculous urge to get a different perspective on Madrid.

These frantic thoughts were simply last-minute panic and they evaporated when I arrived (early and without problems!) in the hospital’s volunteer office. The coordinator was late, but I chatted with another volunteer who was also there, Raquel. I learned this week that she’s 75, but she doesn’t look much over 60. She’s been coming to the hospital for the last 5 years, but had to take the last year off because she had ankle surgery and then fell and broke her wrist. She was incredibly nice and immediately made me feel welcome. Once the coordinator and other volunteers came there were besos (kisses) all around and then we got down to business.

Volunteers work in pairs. My partner was the only other person under 50 in the room. Her name is Alma and she’s 18! It was exciting to be working with another student and she was great about speaking slowly and making sure I understood (most of) what was going on. Each pair receives a list of names and rooms from the coordinator and then we go off and find the rooms and talk with the patients. It’s a good system and you can get through about 4 or 5 people in the two hours. Like I said, I’ve never volunteered at a hospital before and I don’t really know what to say to sick people in English, let alone Spanish, but I learned a lot from my co-worker. She was really good about being sympathetic, but also trying to encourage people to keep a positive attitude.

The first man we visited has been in the hospital with a head injury for the last 5 or 6 months. He’s up and walking around now so we accompanied him to the other end of the hallway and then bought him a coke. He didn’t have a lot to say and Alma told me that he we had found him in a bad mood. The next person we went to visit we couldn’t find. We found the room just fine, but the patient in the bed listed was not the one we wanted and no one in the room knew where to find her. Alma told me that this happens occasionally and we moved on to the next patient. The next one was really exciting for me because he spoke English! Originally from the Ivory Coast he had moved to Spain about a month ago. It was a little embarrassing because he spoke no Spanish before arriving, but after just a month his mastery of the language was as good, if not better than mine. He said it was only because he could also speak French, but I think perhaps he was just being kind. He was a very impressive young man who, in addition to French, English, and Spanish also spoke Arabic and Hebrew. Yeah, I don’t get it either. We spent a long time with him and then had to head back to the volunteer office where we gave a brief report on all the people we had seen and the state in which we had found them. All of the volunteers also asked me eagerly how I had enjoyed the hospital, and I told them that it had been a little overwhelming but great.

Several of them also asked for my number and promised me they’d find me some Spanish friends. I was doubtful, but gave them my number anyway. More on this later…

This post is absurdly long, but I am so excited about the hospital and wanted to convey at least some sense of what it’s like. I’m spending almost six hours a week there for the next 2 months so it will be a decent part of my experience in Spain and probably just a good life experience as well. I am sure there will be more hospital stories to come!

More Lisboa

I never finished my Lisboa stories! The highlight of Saturday was definitely our tour with Bruno. Who is Bruno? Excellent question. He is this super cool, laid-back guy who is a graphic designer in real life, and he sometimes works at the hostel where we were staying. He realized that lots of people come to Lisboa and never see his favorite parts because they get too overwhelmed by the options or confused by the public transportation or simply don't know what's there to see. He thinks this is totally a waste and created a tour for the hostel guests. A few days a week he drives foreigners around in his van to all the coolest places in and around Lisboa. He wasn't going to give the tour the Saturday we were there, but when he saw us all sleeping on the couch Friday morning he knew we needed help and organized a tour just for the "angels on the sofa." Seriously, that's what he called us. Sweet, no?

It was the BEST tour of my life and even though it was 20 Euros, plus some cheap food and admission to one of the places we visited, I can say with confidence it's the best money I have spent in Europe so far. Part of the tour's charm was, of course, our guide and the fact that it didn't feel like a tour. It felt like Bruno was a good friend of ours and, as a friend, he wanted to make sure we had a good time in Lisboa. We started off in Sintra, a little town 25 minutes from the capital. Bruno directed us to a pastry shop and instructed us to buy quejadas (little cheesecakes). Then, we were to meet him at a place farther ahead because the best way to get the feel of Sintra was to walk through the village. The pastry was delicious and the town very, very cute. When we reunited with Bruno he bought us another pastry (also delectable, but much sweeter). He told us that back in the day this pastry had only been for the rich.

The highlight of Sintra was undoubtedly the Pena Palace. It's a UNESCO World Heritage site (the first one, in fact) and I could spend the next 15 paragraphs trying to describe its beauty, but I still wouldn't be able to convey it, so I won't bother. It was one of the most spectacular things I have ever seen. Basically, it's out of a fairytale and is nestled in a low mountain and surrounded by a forest/park. The walls are a mix of cheerful colors and the famed Portuguese tiles. My friends and I took absurd amounts of pictures as we walked around the parapets of the castle and looked out at the incredible view. You can walk almost all the way around the exterior along narrow stone pathways that every few feet have mini-towers and staircases you can climb for an even better view. The whole group was captured by the magic of the castle and we could not stop exclaiming over its beauty. I felt so lucky to have the chance to see the palace, and we all kept saying that it was so fabulous it couldn't be real. It is real, however, and if you want some sense of what I'm talking about you should check out the wikipedia page on the palace. It's got some good pictures: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pena_Palace.

You'd think after that high the rest of the day would be a let-down, but it absolutely was not. We stopped next at a stand on the road for lunch. I can't tell you the name of what it was, but essentially it was a chorizo (spicy sausage) calzone. It was fresh from the oven and only cost 1 Euro. It doesn't get much better than that. We continued on to the end of the world. It's the western-most point in Europe and before the Americas were discovered Europeans thought that there wasn't anything else but the ocean. One of my friends remarked that, looking out at the ocean from this spot, you could believe that it was the end of the world. I certainly couldn't see NY. It was another beautiful site and a nice natural contrast to the man-made beauty of the palace.

This is a little strange but one of my favorite parts of the tour was the van ride between each site. As we hurtled down the narrow roads we blasted our American music. You know how sometimes when you do ordinary things to music it makes the moment way more special? It was like that. The scenery was so beautiful and the loud music meant that there wasn’t any pressure to talk. I loved being able to just zone out a little bit and take some time to think about the amazing things I had seen.

Next up was the beach! Portugal's got great beaches and we stopped briefly at one because the sand was beautiful and it's very famous, but we stayed for 1/2 hour or so at another that was a little less impressive, but more accessible. The water was FREEZING. Also at the beach we got world-famous ice-cream. Lots of rich Europeans wanted to leave their home countries during WWII in order to escape the fighting and since Portugal was neutral went there. One Italian family came and opened up an ice-cream store and decided they loved it so much they never left. The ice-cream truly was excellent and I had a raspberry-chocolate-cream combination. I was quite proud of myself for putting together such a delightful concoction.

Finally, we headed to Belém. Belém has the super cool Monument to the Discoveries which celebrates all of the Portuguese explorers. There were a lot. It's a big ship's brow that juts out into the ocean (river?) and the guys who discovered the new world and faster routes to Africa/Asia are depicted in sculpture form all down the sides. Fearlessly leading the trip is Henry the Navigator, who I guess never actually sailed anywhere, but was a big supporter of the explorations. While the monuments were cool and all, the big draw in Belém was the famous pastry shop. Yes, I know that much of this tour was about food. That's part of what made it so great. This pastry shop is 160 years old and makes the wonderful "pastel de Belém," custard tarts with a flaky crust. The line was way out the door for the tarts, but Bruno has connections (of course he does) and he walked us right into the store and we came out with our bag of pastéis. We sprinkled a little cinnamon and a little powered sugar and enjoyed them right on the street while the people in line watched enviously.

Thus concluded the tour. Really, it was wonderful and such a great thing for our group because it meant we didn't have to figure out what was worth seeing and what wasn't. I am eternally grateful to Bruno and the Oasis Backpacker's Hostel.

Lisbon, Portugal - Day 1

This past weekend I had my first out-of-Spain adventure and it was quite thrilling. A group of five other girls and I decided to go to Lisbon, Portugal for the weekend. I've never really had any strong desire to see Portugal, but it's close to Spain and not terribly expensive so it seemed like a good idea to go for a weekend. I am so glad I went! It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been and truly one of the most enjoyable trips I have ever had.

The journey began at the painfully early hour of 4:50AM. Our flight left at 6:55 which meant we couldn't take the metro because it wouldn't open in time for us to make the plane. This was a big bummer because it meant I had to pay for a taxi to the airport. My host mom pretty much saved the day by allowing my friend Natalie spend the night so that we could share the taxi in the morning. This was particularly nice because Spaniards are very private about their homes and do not invite people over with the same ease as Americans. It was really fun to have a friend in the house and we stayed up way later than we should have watching House. I think we got about 2 hours of sleep.

The ride to the airport and the quick flight to Lisbon were uneventful, but the taxi ride from the Lisbon airport to the Backpacker's Oasis Hostel was hair-raising! The streets of Lisbon are narrow, cobble-stoned, and hilly and our taxi driver sped down them as if he were a racecar driver. One of my friends was actually clinging to the door and couldn't suppress a gasp after one particularly forceful turn. I'm happy to report that we all survived and the drama of the cab ride quickly faded once we saw what an awesome place we were living for the weekend. The hostel has won all sorts of awards and is super pretty (wood floors, balconies, lots of windows and a very nice living room, dining room, and bar). We arrived at about 8 and our rooms were not ready (surprise, surprise) so we scarfed down some of the free breakfast and then passed out on the couches in the living room. No doubt, what with our luggage strewn about and the six of us taking up all of the available couch space, we made quite a site.

After a few hours we had recovered sufficiently to begin exploring. Lisbon is not a huge city so we set out from the hotel with our map and began to wander in earnest. The day was beautiful (sunny and over 80 degree) and everywhere we looked there were pretty apartments covered in the ceramic tiles that are a trademark of Lisbon. We hopped on a tram (a ride almost as exciting as the one in the taxi) and got off when we got to a place that looked interesting. We saw an old church, a basilica, and countless pastry shops. Our wandering left us exhausted so we grabbed lunch in a little cafe and returned to the hostel to officially check-in. At this point I felt as though I was ready to collapse from exhaustion and was ready for a nap, but others were rearing to go so after another hellish ride on the tram we agreed that more sightseeing was a possibility if we stopped for coffee and some of Lisbon's world-famous pastry. We entered the first cafe we saw and spent the next hour snacking. It's difficult for me to explain just how good this pastry was, but believe me when I say that my cream-filled puff ball (I can't remember its actual name) was divine. Feeling better, we took the metro to the Gulbenkian Museum. It's an art museum that began from the personal collection of Calouste Gulbenkian, an oil tycoon who came to Portugal in 1942 to escape WWII. The collection was very impression and I got to see artifacts/art from ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Eastern Arabs. There were also a lot of European paintings from the 15th-17th centuries and a room filled with all this antique furniture that looked as though it had once belonged to royalty. Definitely worth a visit!

Back at the hostel, we tried to nap, but since my body completely over-reacts to caffeine, the coffee from earlier just meant that I spent an hour and a half on my bed trying to remind myself how tired I was. Oh well. The hostel offers an authentic Portuguese dinner every night for only 5 Euros and we decided we could not pass up a deal like that. Dinner was late, but we commandeered the dining hall table and kept ourselves thoroughly entertained by telling ridiculous stories about our lives before coming to Spain. Dinner was incredible and HUGE. I had a piece of meat/veggie lasagna/mashed potato lasagna that was at least the size of my face. There was also salad and a wonderful almond pie for dessert. The day pretty much ended there. We went out for a bit to try and explore the nightlife, but we were far too tired to make any real progress so we returned to the hostel for a good night's rest and promised ourselves we would do better the next day.

Vamanos a Aranjuez

Last Saturday I planned a (mini) adventure and I think it went quite well. For those of you who aren't quite fluent in Spanish (or choose not to watch Dora the Explorer) the title of this post can be translated as "We're going to Aranjez." Aranjuez is a small town 35 minutes outside of Madrid. I'm a huge fan of my Lonely Plant guidebook and it suggested Aranjuez as an excellent day trip and a pleasant way to enjoy a few hours. Aranjuez is famous because it is the location of the Royal Family's summer palace. While all of my images of Britian conjure up Kings and Queens, I have to consistently remind myself that Spain, too, has a royal family.

In any case, I decided that I wanted to go to Aranjuez and convinced a few friends to come with me. We wanted to take the "Strawberry Train," which is a historic train where people in period costumes hand out strawberries during the journey. Apparently it's very cool. However, the train was full and we couldn't get tickets. I was nearly devestated, but Spain has EXCELLENT public transportation and the real train journeys to Aranjuez every 20 minutes for only 6 euros round trip. So, I got over my disappointment and we took the metro to the next stop and hopped on one of the high speed trains.

Aranjuez is very dry (everywhere we looked there was dirt without grass), but the palace is HUGE and draws a ton of madrilenos looking to get out of Madrid for the day. I don't think it's super popular with foreign visitors because most people choose to stay in Madrid or, if they really want a day trip, go to Toledo. It felt very authentically Spanish (whatever that means) and we elected to take a guided tour of the palace. We had a bit of time before the tour so we snacked on our "bocadillos" or sandwiches packed for us by our host moms and then explored the gardens. You would never know that Aranjuez doesn't recieve a lot of water by looking at the gardens. There were lots of dirt paths shaded by large trees and surrounded by low hedges. I think it was very English in style, but I don't know very much about gardens so don't quote me. Every 40 feet or so the path we were on would widen and we'd be in front of a small fountain with a statue of a greek god or godess. The atmosphere was very restful and certainly would have been quite a luxury at the time of the garden's construction.

Our guided tour was super interesting, but a bit exhuasting as well. It was, of course, in Spanish and our guide rapidly moved us from room to room as she explained the palace's history. My favorite room was the smoking room - about the size of a south common room, but decorated in an Arabic style. The walls were decorated in mosaic tiles and I think the guide said it was a replica of a certain part of the Alhombra. It was breathtaking and everyone in the room laughed at the thought that such a magnificent room had been built simply to provide the king a place to smoke.

After the tour we were starving and set out to find a cafe/bar outside of the tourist area. Cheaper and more interesting. We wandered for a bit before asking a random woman on the street if she could recommend a place. She was incredibly kind and walked us to her favorite bar. She even gave us the bar's history, telling us that it was owned or in homage to (couldn't quite follow the whole story) by a musician who just happened to visit Aranjuez and liked it so much that he decided to stay for a bit and created a song named after the city. The bar proved to be a good choice - yummy and inexpensive and we all recieved a free piece of chocolate from the nice bartender who laughed good naturedly at our inability to decipher the menu and then, after we knew the options, to make a decision.

All in all, a good trip.

Sparknotes version of weeks 1 and 2

It has been so long since I've posted! So much has happened that if I tried to give each new event the description it deserved, I would be here for days. Since I need to go out and experience even more new things, I'm going to give the short account of the last two weeks. First off, I left for orientation on Saturday, September 5th. The group traveled together in a large tour bus. We were accompanied by Pablo, our fearless driver; Soledad, the director; and Paco, the assistant director. The trip was a bit of a whilrwind. We saw the cities of Leon, Oviedo, Covadonga, Santander, Comillas, and Burgos. I should note that for some of the places we visited "city" is an overstatement. In any case, they were all beautiful. Each town had an old center, where the buildings were hundreds of years old and the streets were still made of cobblestone. All had little cafes and every cafe had tables with pretty umbrellas where you could sit and enjoy a coca-cola, cafe con leche, wine, or beer. We had lots of "free lunches" where we were given money and could go off in small groups and find the cafe of our choice at which to eat. One of my favorite dishes quickly became the "platos combinados" where you could get fried eggs, french fries, and your choice of meat for a pretty low price. Sorry if I seem to be spending a lot of time describing the eating options. Much of the trip revolved around food and since a lot of it was dishes I had never tried before, it made an impact.

One of my favorite meals was in Oviedo, the capital of the region of Asturias. Oviedo is one of the cleanest cities in Spain and is known for its sidra, or hard cider. There is a whole row of restaurants in Oviedo where tourists (and probably natives too, on occasion) come and enjoy the sidra. The waiters have a special technique for getting the sidra into your glass. They hold the bottle above their head and the glass at waist level, stare straight ahead, and pour. It's quite a sight! It's easy to tell when you're near the sidrerias (cider-serving restaurants) because the streets have small rivers of cider where the waiters missed the glass a bit. Hamilton took everyone in the group out to a sidreria and we all enjoyed the new beverage and the 6 or 7 course meal. It was ridiculously large, but delicious.

We also saw two beautiful cathedrals. One in Leon (our first city) and one in Burgos (our last city). They were incredible! I've never seen a European cathedral before and was blown away by both their age (both were built around the 14th century) and their magnitude. They were similar in design, but obviously each one had its own specialties. The one in Leon had incredible stained glass windows and the one in Burgos had all these amazing little (or not so little) side rooms that rich families at the time of the construction had sponsored so they could have their own private chapels. So many other things happened, but, as I said, I don't have time to share it all now. If you're really interested you can check out my pictures at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2019885&id=1389000077&l=61ecf624df.

I got back from Orientation on Saturday, September 12 and that evening got my first taste of Madrid nightlife. Quite fun. It's true that the people of Madrid know how to party. The streets were full as full at 3AM as they had been at 10PM. I also successfully navigated my way home using the night bus, and I was quite proud. Sunday afternoon I went to my frist bullfight. Now, I was expecting it to be bloody and gruesome, and it certainly was, but I have to admit I was fascinated. I can see quite easily why my guidebok called it Madrid's most controversial pastime. Monday I started classes and so far, they've been super interesting. It's a bit exhausting to listen to that much spanish, but I believe that I am slowly adapting. I'm taking a class on Cervantes' Don Quijote and the professor is marvelous. He recites poetry to us in Spanish, English, and French. I'm terribly impressed with him and like the idea of reading such a masterpiece in it's original language. Up next is the history of modern Spain with another great professor. His speech is peppered with both English and Spanish and sometimes it takes me a moment to figure out whether I'm understanding him because my Spanish is improving or simply because he's speaking my native tongue. On Tuesday I had a grammer class (slightly boring, but useful) and a class titled "The Modern Social Conscience of Spain." This mouthful boils down to a practce-based class where I will have the opportunity to learn about NGOs in Spain and spend at least 60 hours volunteering at a non-profit. Needless to say, I am very excited although a bit scared to interview at the potential site. I'll keeep you updated.

Whew, I'm exhausted from all this typing. Bye!

Today was my first full day in Spain and it was, as was expected, full of new experiences. I slept so soundly last night that I had no idea where I was when I awoke. After running through the two most likely locales, home or Hamilton, I finally remembered, "oh, I'm in Spain." Not going to lie, the thought of leaving my room was a little overwhelming. My Spanish leaves a lot to be desired and making conversation is work, but I finally psyched myself up enough to head out for breakfast. Before this, of course, I had to get dressed (or at least I felt I had to get dressed. I'm unsure whether or not it's appropriate to go to breakfast in your pj's). I stood before my dresser a good 8 minutes before I picked something out. Pants? Too hot. Dress? Too colorful. Shorts? Too American. Since my options were exhausted after those three options I cycled through them at least 10 more times (coming to the same conclusions each round) before I gave myself a stern talking to and finally decided pants would be fine.

After breakfast, chocolate milk and toast, my senora and I headed out to explore the neighborhood and do a little shopping. I live in the barrio (neighborhood) of Arguelles, but in the district of Moncloa. The streets were full of people at 11:30AM and Elvira showed me the metro and we did some window shopping at the many shoe stores and European fashion boutiques. Elvira is definitely a discout shopper. Many of the shoes we saw were dismissed as "caro" expensive, but we did stop to look inside a store that offered shoes for only 7 Euros. I picked up some champu (shampoo) and locion (lotion) at a local drug store and, after paying, we left it with the saleslady because Elvira assured me that I wouldn't want to carry it on the rest of our travels. After grabbing some groceries, we returned for my purchases. I don't think you could do that in New York!

Seeing the neighborhood with Elvira just made me want to explore more, which was perfect because this afternoon I met up with some other students on the program. We spoke in English (sort of a no-no), but justified it by agreeing that the program hadn't officially started yet. In any case, it was delightful to see other Americans and swap stories about our plan rides, jet lag, senoras, and more. After meeting at el centro (the place where we'll have classes) we went to El Parque de Santender. It was beautiful with a track, driving range, playgrounds, squash courts, batting cages, a fountain, and more. We spent several hours there just talking and enjoying the sunshine. It was the kind of afternoon that made me feel good about being in Spain and excited to spend the next nine months in this beautiful city!

I'm here!

After almost 20 hours of travel, I've made it to Madrid! My (three) flights went smoothly, except for the mysterious two hours spent sitting on the runway in Heathrow waiting to take off for Madrid. The captain may have explained this delay, but my body thought it was 6 in the morning and I was in no state to translate his rapid spanish. My attempts at Spanish with my taxi driver were much more successful. He probably cheated me, but we chatted happily about the best things to do in Madrid and he pointed out many places of interest.

My host mom's apartment is very nice. It's long and narrow with rooms off a single hallway. I have a fairly sizable room to myself that looks out into an unremarkable courtyard. I feel very metropolitan! Unpacking left me exhausted, but it's great to be connected to the internet and have access to e-mail and, of course, facebook. Elvira, my host mom, seems great. She has a little bird that she keeps in a cage and it keeps chirping. It's charming, but a bit unsettling because I'm not used to having birds quite so close. Elvira welcomed me in and fed me lasagna and salad, which was really nice because I'm pretty sure those are not native Spanish dishes. She tried to feed me more, and only after several assurances that I was full and promising to eat some more detras (later) did she let me go!

Tomorrow the plan is to go shopping for some items I didn't have room to pack (shampoo!) and meet up with some of the other kids from the program.

I can't believe I'm in Madrid.