Why not blog RIGHT NOW?

There are a million things I should be doing right now. Well, probably not a million, but at least 5 or 6 which is more than I can usually say for Spain. However, I'm full of energy right now and I don't feel as though I can successfully channel that energy into writing the oh-so-elusive perfect cover letter for a summer internship possibility or an error-free page of description in Spanish. I'm just not feeling it.

So instead, let me tell you that I've been busy. And I love it. Some of my more interesting (not too mention impressive sounding) adventures are the result of my Art History class. I've never taken Art History before and in fact once shuddered at the idea of looking a endless slides in a dark room for hours. However, I am in Madrid and all of my professors (seriously, even the grammar one) told me last semester that the city has, arguably, the finest collection of paintings in the Europe. We've got the Prado (maybe you've heard of it??), the Reina Sofia (modern Spanish Art), and the Thyssen Bornemisza (an incredible private collection of European paintings). Last semester I made it to each of these museums exactly once. And in the Reina Sofia I only looked at Picasso's El Guernica.

When I went to pick classes for this semester I decided that if I really wanted to have the full study abroad experience I had to take Art History. And so I did. I was doubtful the first class. The lights went down, the slides came up, and I almost fell asleep. But, little by little, the class has been growing on me. There are a few reasons for this:

1. We only spend one day a week in the dark. The other day we go to the museums and actually see the works en vivo. This is very, very cool. I thought perhaps it would be boring or tiring standing around staring at painted pieces of cloth, but it's not.

2. The professor, Linda, is fabulous. She looks just as you would imagine an Art History professor to look (yes, I am stereotyping) with red lipstick and outrageous earrings. Her knowledge of the works and their artists is vast and her passion for art impossible to ignore. With her as I my guide I am able to appreciate the works in a way I wouldn't be able to do on my own. Art can certainly be enjoyed without any background or technical knowledge, but I know I have a more rich, engaging experience with the class. Plus, now I know what to look for and will be able to use it in on other works in other museums. Linda is also fabulous because she gives us suggestions for what to do in Madrid. I have been to both a churreria (a shop that sell a fried dough that you dip in chocolate) and a jazz club she recommended. Finally, she reminds us to aprovechar - or take advantage - of the experience we're having right here, right now. This should be a no-brainer, but sometimes it gets hard or scary and it's good to have someone there to remind you.

3. We go on field trips! Sometimes, on Fridays, the whole class meets in the morning and we go to a different place to look at art. Last week we went to the Ermita de San Antonio de la Gloria. It's a church right near where I live and the ceilings inside were painted by Goya! It's a beautiful fresco and I probably never would have seen it if I hadn't taken Art History.

Alright, I might actually go try to write that cover letter now.

Madrid: Take 2

So, I'm really horrible about updating this blog, but I can say in my defense that, rather than stay in my room and write in English, I am trying to get out and do things this semester. I mean, I saw and did a lot last semester, but I want to keep the momentum going. And then there is the problem that when I do get some free time www.surfthechannel.com (a site that hosts American television) keeps calling out to me. It's a real problem...

Anyway, this is semester two and I just wanted to reflect (as much for myself as for whoever may be reading this) on what's different the second time around.

1. A totally new group of students. Last semester there were 35 students. This semester we've got 45 and only 7 of us are staying the year. It's a very different dynamic because while last semester groups seemed to form pretty quickly, this semester's groupings - even after a month - still feel pretty fluid. I certainly miss the new friends I made, but it is exciting to have so many friends from Hamilton here. Sometimes I still can't believe that the people I can only picture on the Hill are with me drinking cafes con leche and going to the discotecas. WEIRD, but cool.

2. My Spanish is better. A lot better. There was a time in the middle of the fall when I was certain my Spanish was exactly the same as the day I arrived. It's not that I never knew what was going on, but just that I didn't seem to be improving at all. There were still so many words I didn't know and so many grammar structures I understood in theory but couldn't use in everyday conversation. I'm no expert yet, but arrival of so many new Americans has made me realize that I learned quite a bit last semester. Often, when asked how to say a certain vocabulary word, I know the answer! For my literature class I can read the books and, while the subtleties still escape me, I always know what's going on. I’m even in the advanced grammar class this semester.

3. I know Madrid. I can walk from the Prado to my house. I can quickly orient myself on a city map. There are places that I know and like and have frequented more than once. In fact, there is one bar I go to where the bouncer knows my name and I know his. (I really am not sure how this happened, since I’ve only been 3 times, but it’s still cool). My knowledge is, in fact, so extensive that when I met up with a friend not from Madrid I was able to take us to a hip neighborhood, find a “typical” restaurant, and order “typical” food for us to enjoy. I think, maybe, finally, I’m falling a little bit in love with the city.

4. I have a housemate! It’s thrilling. It would be awkward to write a lot about her since she could very well be reading this, but her name is Sarah and she goes to Bates. We go out and get coffee/coca-cola on a regular basis.

So, there you have it: my first thoughts on the second chapter of this epic adventure.

A Grecian Adventure

One of my very dearest friends, Emma, and I recently got back from Greece! Technically, the trip was a research project funded by Hamilton College. I wanted to investigate the way women in Ancient Greece were represented and understand their role in society. It was all very interesting stuff and I learned a lot. For instance, did you know that the ancient Greeks had an ideal depiction for both men and women? Yep, young men were idealized in the form of "kouros" or statues of naked boys who represented perpetual youthfulness, eternal beauty, and the bliss of life. The statues of young women, called

Emma in front of the Acropolis!

"korai," on the other hand, depicted a figure dressed modestly who represented grace and modesty. There's lots more to share (in case you can't guess, the Athenians are were not know for their equality) but I have to give a full report on my findings when I return to Hamilton and think it would be more fun if I shared some of the details that made the trip so memorable.

We arrived in Athens on January 30th and found our hostel with relative ease. Let me just take this moment to brag about my excellent map-reading/directional skills. I am NEVER the person who knows how to get from A to B. That job always falls to someone else, but, as it turns out, I am perfectly capable of navigating. Not that I never got lost, but I always had some idea of where we were and how to get to the next location. Emma repeatedly told me how impressed she was by my new-found talent (I was pretty impressed myself).
In Athens, we hit up all the major sites: The Acropolis, The New Acropolis Museum, the Archaeological Museum, Keramikos (a cemetery/city from Ancient times). We spent a lot of time looking at rocks, but I was super interested in it all. The Acropolis was right near our hostel and, perched way up above the modern city, it was an impressive site that you couldn’t help but notice, day or night.

Throughout the whole trip I was constantly referring to my Lonely Planet Greece guidebook as it had maps, restaurant suggestions, and lots of interesting historical tidbits. In LP I read that the Greeks are famous for their hospitality. Emma and I found this to be very true the first night we arrived. We were hungry and walked into almost the first restaurant we saw. Inside, a woman was playing Christmas carols on the piano and we immediately ordered wine (we had a drink with dinner every single night – how cultured, no?) and dinner. Although we paid for just the essentials we left with far more. There were a group of students from Milan having a great time and they got the whole restaurant involved in singing. It really was one of the most festive atmospheres I have ever experienced. As we neared the end of our meal, our waiter brought us a shot of ouzo (a famous Greek alcoholic drink), chestnuts (which we didn’t know how to crack so he had to come back and help us), chocolate, roses (bought from a vender who wandered inside off the street), and, my favorite, a great big kiss on the cheek. We definitely got our money’s worth!

After a few days in Athens, we decided to take a day trip. Actually, we were going to take two, one-day trips: the first to the Oracle at Delphi and the second to Ancient Mycenae. Delphi is several hours away from Athens and we had to wake up at 6AM, catch a local bus to the central bus station in order time to make the 7:30AM bus to Delphi. Just as we walked up to the bus stop, we saw the bus pull away. No big deal. It would come again soon and we still had an hour to make the bus. Turns out it was a big deal because the next bus didn’t come for another ½ hour. At 7:00AM we boarded the local bus and started to count stops. The hostel had told us the main bus station was 13 stops away. At 13, we went to get off the bus and realized we were in the middle of a rundown street in a fairly residential neighborhood. In broken English the bus driver explained that the bus station was four or five stops back. Since it was 7:28, there was no way we were going to make it to the Delphi bus in time. Plan B! Instead, we’d go to Mycenae. Thus began another adventure. We took the bus back to the main square, got on the metro to go to the train station, took the commuter train to a town an hour outside of Athens, boarded a bus to that city center, in the center switched buses to go to a different bus station, took a bus to another small town, where we then walked 2 ½ miles uphill in the sun to arrive at Mycenae. I have NEVER used so many different forms of public transportation in my whole life, and I hope to never again. Whew. It makes me tired and stressed just to think about it again. However, despite all of that traveling and shuffling, we had a great day. It was certainly memorable and everyone we met was just so nice to us. Bus drivers were always willing to tell us where to get off and where to go next. I certainly learned the value of asking for help, because I think we’d still be lost in rural Greece if we hadn’t. Also, if you’re traveling, no language beats English. We could always find someone who knew enough English to direct us on our way. Also, Ancient Mycenae was very, very cool. The ruins are at the top of a hill and significantly older than the Acropolis and what we had seen in Athens. We wandered around taking pictures and trying to imagine the people who had inhabited this fortress 3,000 years ago.

Beautiful Mycenae!

Of course the adventure couldn’t end there. We still had to get home! Don’t worry – we didn’t have to take all those forms of transportation in reverse. Turns out the last bus we had taken originated in Athens so we could just get on it going in the other direction and it would take us straight back. Wasn’t quite that easy, though. We had to buy tickets from this old woman in a café that must have been a front for some sort of illegal activity (I say this because the café had only a counter selling cigarettes, a single table with old men sitting around smoking, and the rest of the sizable room was empty. Oh, and we tried several cafes before finding the right one). After hearing our request, the woman hopped on her cell phone and started chatting in Greek. When she hung up, she told us (in very poor English) that we couldn’t get on the bus for another 2 hours because all the earlier ones were booked. We were bummed, but turns out it was a stroke of luck because we went to a café that had free internet(!) where I double checked out plane tickets to Crete and learned they were for the next day, not in two days as I had thought. Woops…

So, the next morning we boarded the plane to Crete. Crete wasn’t quite as fun as Athens, but that has more to do with the fact that the weather was sort of nasty than anything about the island itself. Also, I didn’t think about the fact that January 6th was a national holiday (Three Kings Day) and that the whole city would be shut down. Instead of sight-seeing Emma and I spent the whole day in cafes. Really. We slept late and went a delicious breakfast (some sort of pastry with cheese and honey) where we lingered over our coffee for a few hours. We then tried to find an open movie theater but failed and went to a second café where we once again lingered over our tea and hot chocolate for several hours. Finally, we relocated to a very tiny café where we lingered over snacks and dessert for nearly three hours. At last it was late enough to justify our trip to the airport and we walked back to the hotel to get our bags. When we passed the café ten minutes later with the bags, it had closed its doors and shut down for the night…
I wish I could say that our flight back to Madrid was smooth and trouble free, but naturally it was terribly windy on Crete and no flights could land. Ours got canceled and we were rebooked for one in the very early morning. With the new plans we were scheduled to get into Athens at 6:00AM, but we had a flight with a different airline to get back to Madrid at 6:30. The Olympic Air people were incredibly nice and found a way to check our bags all the way through to Madrid, despite the difference in airlines. The morning flight left on time and we walked into the boarding area for the second flight just as the airline attendant started inviting people to board. It actually worked out beautifully.

And then we were back in Madrid and I was starting my second semester abroad!

End of Year Re-Cap

So, like the rest of the world I got a little overwhelmed at the end of the year and this poor little blog fell by the wayside. No matter. Here are the highlights:

THANKSGIVING. I was so, so sad to be away from home on this special holiday and that sadness was only accentuated by the thought that there would be no turkey or stuffing for me this year. The Spanish, in case you didn't know, don't really eat turkey. They look at you in fascination if you talk about buying a whole bird to roast. However, several other kids in my program and I decided to order a full-on Thanksgiving dinner from a local chef. He's a friend (an American one) of one of the women who works for the program and runs his own catering business. Normally, he caters to Spaniards, but he spends the last Thursday of every November cooking up a delicious Thanksgiving feast for anyone willing to pay. My friends and I went in together, so it wasn't a bad deal. Three of us went across the city in the rain to pick it up and it was quite an experience to ride the metro with boxes of turkey, broccoli casserole, stuffing, cranberry sauce, etc. Lots of Spaniards know what Thanksgiving is and as we trekked by them with our mouth-watering cargo, they wished up a happy holiday. Later, eating the dinner in the basement of our center I really couldn't imagine a better Thanksgiving in Spain.

MY BIRTHDAY. Also sad to be away from home on my birthday, but my family and friends in the US made me feel loved despite the thousands of miles and 6 hour time difference. I received a delightful package from my mom and skyped with all my friends. In Spain, my host mom made me a special comida (complete with champagne, cake, and a beautiful gray scarf) and some friends and I went out for tapas and wine. Yes, it was a little staid for a 21st birthday celebration in the US, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. And don't worry; I had spent the previous Friday night clubbing until the wee hours of the morning as a way to kick-off my birthday week. I'm just not hard-core enough to go to class with a hangover. Judge me if you must.

FINALS. They were not fun, obviously, but they were better than if I had been at Hamilton. It got so, so cold here and my host mom just about had a fit about the craziness of the weather, but we survived. I spent one full day ensconced in my room writing a 8-10 page paper that I had foolishly left until the last minute. Still not sure how well I did, but I got it done and didn't have to pull any all-nighters. Sounds like a success to me. It was sad to say goodbye to all the friends that I had made this semester because the majority are not returning for the spring semester. What with facebook and skype and all now, however, I'm confident that I'll stay in touch with at least some of them.

CHRISTMAS. I went home! I'm sure everyone reading this already knows that I went home, and it was wonderful. I spent the (very short) nine days fighting jetlag, eating American food, and enjoying my friends and family. It's been years since I've had such a nice Christmas. On December 27th I got back on a plane for Spain! Now you'll just have to wait for the next entry to hear about my trip to Greece with my good friend Emma.