SPAINISH: T BROWN BLOG TOWN

La última semana

2010-06-18T22:06:00.003+02:00

Staying an extra week in Sevilla was a great decision. With 95% of the Americans gone, I was at long last able to completely surround myself with Spaniards for 7 full days. On Saturday I went with my host parents to Carmen's pueblo, about an hour outside of Sevilla, where there was a sort of miniature Feria going on. In place of over 1000 casettas, for example, there were about 20, but it was almost more fun than the actual Feria. Between Carmen, her sister and her cousin we knew about everybody there and, because of that, I met nearly more people in one day at this tiny Feria than I did in 7 days in Sevilla. I'd probably never felt so a part of the culture until that day in Carmen's pueblo of 'Monestario'.

On Sunday we went to a friends house for a birthday party (a friend of Carmen's) that I hadn't seen since my first week in Sevilla. It was a pretty neat experience being able to show them the improvement in my spanish over those 9 months and I have to admit that they were pretty impressed. The next few days I spent at home hanging out with Carmen and Moises before going to the fútbol game in Barcelona.

One story that I find pretty entertaining, and a little bit touching, is the purchase of a laptop by Carmen. I went with her one day before I left to look for cheap laptops with a built in camera so that she could skype with me once I returned to the USA and we found a few pretty reasonable deals. That night, however, when Carmen told Ramon of her plans, he wouldn't hear anything of it. He said that she had no idea how to use a computer, that they should wait at least 3 months to even think of buying one because thats when all of the good deals hit the shelves and that she needs to take a class first. I told Carmen that Ramon had some pretty solid points, so I figured that she would wait to do it for a while. Nevertheless, when I got back from Barcelona, there was Carmen looking like a cat trying to 'figure out' a ball of yarn as she sat there with her new computer. I don't think it needs saying that she is the head of that household. The next day as I was upstairs packing she was constantly calling me, 'Trevorrrr, where is the 'm'?? I cant find the 'm'... Trevorrrrr come down and show me how to click the 'ok', how do you move the arrow??'..... Needless to say it was the first computer (laptop, to be more specific) that she had ever touched in her life. She also requested that I find her cheap flights, hotels included, to exotic locations around the globe - something that is a bit more difficult than she seemed to imagine.

My last night in Sevilla was perfect. For the first time all of my best Sevillan friends came over to meet my family and we sat outside on the porch in constant laughter (thanks to Ramon - the funniest man in this world) until 5 am, when I had to go to the airport. It was the ideal conclusion to my 9 month stay in Spain. I finally had all of the people that meant the most to me over there in one place - and I wasn't even the 'american', I was just one of them. Making jokes, laughing, maybe a tiny, tiny, minute bit of drinking.... (lo siento madre), a full-fledged member of the Sevillan culture. Of everything that I did over there, of every soccer game I saw and every sevillana that I engaged in (even the one with 'EL maria'), the one thing that I will remember most is that last night. The icing on the cake. The ultimate conclusion. After 10 months of trying to make sevillan friends, of trying become an actual member of my family and of the culture, I had finally done it.

My host parents took me to the airport that morning (after exactly '0' hours of sleep - and, not to mention, a total of about 12 hours of sleep the 3 nights previous) where we said our final goodbyes. I don't know how my leaving will effect Ramon, he's one of those guys who acts all tough and never shows emotion, but I think that I noticed a few tears in his eyes as I walked through the security line. Carmen, well I have skyped with her 4 times now and every time she says, 'Trevor, a question, so when are you coming to visit again??' And I always say, next year Carmen, when I finish school. And she says, "Do you know when you finish school? Because if so why don't you just buy the ticket now? It would be cheaper too wouldn't it?? And we always have a bedroom open for you. We will move moises and you can take his, even if your only here for a few days" She says that the house has become a bit boring, that the 'alegria' has gone, since I left, but I can't help but feeling a little part of me missing as well. Its difficult to describe. I feel a more 'complete' person for having done what I did but I also feel that something essential is missing. Not getting up every morning and having to speak spanish. Not staying up until 2 am on a nightly basis. Sleeping in every day and not feeling guilty about it, valuing relationships over money, putting family and friends before all else in the world, not caring what time it is as long as your having a good time. These are aspects of the culture and the people that that I will forever hold on to. My mom is already giving me a hard time because I can't seem to sleep in past 7 here, but it doesn't mean that I haven't forgotten how to. I will love and cherish what I have learned and the people that I have met 'hasta la muerte (until the death)' - as says the famous hymn of Sevilla. 'Sevillista seré hasta la muerte'.

For everybody that has kept up on reading this blog, I would like to say thank you. I know that I sometimes slack in putting up new posts and new pictures, and that some blog updates are outrageously long, but thanks for sticking in there. It was nice knowing that I wasn't all alone as I slept in that train station in the middle of Austria. I'm going to miss sharing all of my adventures with you guys. I would also like to dedicate this blog to my Mom. Thank you for teaching me how to stay positive in the toughest of times, how to find enjoyment even in the most miserable of situations, how to be an open and accepting person, how to find the courage and the determination to keep on persevering and how to take the path less traveled.

FC Sevilla vs. Atletico Madrid

2010-05-25T20:05:00.003+02:00

This is passion. And pride. This is love. And this is hate. Above all, however, this is undying, all engaging, heart wrenching, stomach churning loyalty. They call themselves ‘sevillistas’. It isn’t just somebody from Sevilla, but it is a diehard supporter of the Sevillan Fútbol Club. ‘Sevillista’: it is their identity. They live and die with the team. From birth they are raised to love Sevillan soccer, it is in their blood and it will be in the blood of their children, their children’s kids and so on down the line. When was the last time you rode 17 hours in a bus to watch a game, then, when it finished, got right back on that bus and rode another 17 hours home? When was the last time you cried because your team won? There are over 50 songs that every sevillista knows by heart and from the moment we stepped off of our 12 hour train ride to Barcelona (we were the lucky ones) to the moment that everybody passed out from pure exhaustion on the train ride home it was as if you were in a concert.

The game was against Atletico Madrid, one of Sevilla’s most hated rivals. It was the final of the Spanish Copa (Tournament) ‘El Copa del S.M. El Rey’ and the drive from Sevilla to Barcelona was over 1000 km – the farthest any participant in the copa del rey had ever had to drive. Not even that, however, could stop the sevillistas from coming in full flow. Over 150 buses, 4 trains and a few planes specifically reserved for sevillistas left Sevilla Tuesday night. In order to get tickets for the game you have to be a member of Sevilla Fútbol or know a member (each member is given one extra ticket). Luckily for me, one of my good Sevillan friends got me a ticket and I went with him, my other friend, both of their Dads and two of their cousins to the game. We were lucky to have the train, though it still took a good 12 hours to arrive. We got to Barcelona, after about 3 hours of sleep, at 10:00 in the morning – 9 hours before the start of the game. We spent the next few hours wandering around Barcelona, engaging in some touristy activities then around 3 we went to the designated sevillista ‘campo’ (an area reserved for Sevillan fans about 1 mile away from the area reserved for Atletico fans in order to avoid conflict). That was the ‘pep rally’ – as if anybody really needed it. A famous Spanish DJ performed, playing pump up music and sevillista songs for a full 5 hours. Just when I thought I was going to pass out from exhaustion, 7:30pm rolled around and, at long last, the stadium gates opened.

Almost half of the stadium was reserved for us, for the sevillistas, and the other part (a little bit bigger because there were more of them due to the proximity of Madrid and Barcelona) was reserved for the Atletico fans. The next two hours were a competition between the fans to see who could sing the loudest/who had the best songs. Being that I have converted to a Sevillista my opinion could be a little bit biased, but I think we won that competition fair and square.

When the team came out the whole crowd jumped on its feet, waving flags, scarves, hats (Del Nido, the president of Sevilla, is famous for wearing a ---- hat and almost every Sevilla fan in the stadium had a replica of it) and burst into the famous, and beautiful, song of Sevilla. (If you want to listen to it, go to YouTube and type “himno official de Sevilla Fútbol Club).

The game itself was incredible. The noise in the stadium never let down and the play was of the highest of quality. All analysits expected that Atletico would beat Sevilla going into the game, so when we scored the first goal with 6 minutes in our part of the stadium went absolutely loco. I have never hugged so many unknown people in my life. The rest of the game was a nail bitter until the 83 minute when the fan favorite, Jesus Navas, scored the second goal of the game. When the game ended I turned around to hug everybody I was caught off guard to find that tears were filling up their eyes. That’s how much this sport, this team, means to them. It isn’t just a college sporting event where the fans go crazy all game and then, whether or not their team wins, they go party afterwards. This is true, undeniable loyalty. Passion at its fullest. I mean, I love the Broncos, but I don’t think that I would cry if they won the Superbowl.

The 12 hour train ride home wasn’t exactly what I was craving when we finally left the stadium, 2 hours after the game ended, but that was without a doubt one of the most amazing experiences I had in Spain and ‘la glinda de la tarta’ as my Sevillan friends kept saying, ‘the icing on the cake’. The celebration still wasn’t over the next day though. The soccer team started its parade through the city at 6 pm and the celebrations continued on to 2 that morning.

La Feriaaaa (April 19 - April 25)

2010-05-15T13:01:00.001+02:00

Craziest week of my life. That's the only way to put it. Didn't get to bed once before 7 am and didn't wake up once before 1 am. My days consisted of crawling out of bed, eating lunch, getting dressed and going back to the Feria and my nights consisted of the Sevillana. Well worth 50 euros to take that class, every other American was wishing they had done the same when they saw me tearing up that dance floor haha. The feria is made up of over 1000 'casettas' which are essentially big tents owned either privately (by businesses, for example) or are open to the public (political parties). Inside every tent is a bar, hundreds of tables and a dance floor. My host dad's company (El Corte Ingles) had a casetta as well as all of my sevillan friends, so I was never without a place to go. (A lot of other Americans didn't enjoy it as much as I did and I think it is because they simply didn't have places to go. They would stand out in the streets looking for public casettas whereas my roomate and I never had trouble getting into any).

The other little perk of having the family was not having to spend money. One day I went with my Sevillan friends for all day/night and just like that 100 Euros were gone from my wallet. The food combined with the famous rebujitos (pitchers of 'manzanilla' and 7-up) which are 12 euros add up pretty quickly. Anyways one of my new goals in life is to come back to Sevilla for one week every year just to experience that Feria. I honestly don't think that there is anything else like it in this world. In the states everybody would go for the day but it would close by 12 am and I guarantee that it wouldn't be a 7 day event - which really is quite exhausting. (I'm the only person that I have talked to that made it all 7 days). Getting back into school the following week was a little bit difficult being that I was waking up at the same time that I had gone to bed all of the previous week.

Below are some pictures of the Sevillana, when I get home I'll give a little lesson to everybody.

(a picture with the family, though its missing Carmen. From left to right: Zayra (daughter), Spencer (my roomate, behind her), Ramon (host dad), two friends of Zayra, Fidel (brother in law of carmen), myself and emily

P.S.

I also made the mistake of dancing with a man. Well I though that she was a woman. Just a very rare, odd woman. But my family told me she was a he when we got back from the Feria and they haven't let that one get by me yet. At least once a day they say (in a deep, very manly voice), "Trevor, ¿quieres bailar? (Do you want to dance?) They seem to find it very humorous.

Barcelona and irrelevant volcanos (April 16-19)

2010-05-10T12:10:00.000+02:00

I feel like I have expressed my travel woes pretty clearly throughout my blogging this year. Every little thing that could go wrong, regardless of how much planning I put into it, somehow does. Trains, buses, planes, I just never seem to have the best of luck. So when the volcano erupted on wednesday the 15th causing travel horror stories throughout Europe, it was only logical to expect that I would soon find myself involved in one of my own (hint: there is an exciting twist coming up). My plane was to leave Sevilla for Barcelona Friday night at 10:00. By this time the effects the volcano was having on travel throughout Europe had been well documented. So far the Sevillan airport had remained open, but there was little guarantee that it would continue to do so. Anyways, I was about 90% positive that I wasn't going to end up going to Barcelona - to the point that I almost didn't even go to the airport in the first place. But here is where the story takes a very unexpected turn..... I have never had two days of travel so smooth, so crisp, so flawless as I was about to experience. The airports were empty. From entering the airport doors to getting to my gate took all of 10 minutes. Both of the planes took off on time and landed early. I thought it was a dream, this had never, would never, could never happen to me. The only thing I could possibly find to complain about is that smooth travel doesn't make for as exciting, on-the-edge of your seat stories. But I'm going to through that complaint out of the window - I would chose this any day over sleeping in a middle-of-nowhere train station in Austria.

I was planning on meeting my friend in Barcelona who studied abroad in the same program with me last semester (he now studies in France) but French travel was an absolute mess. All of the flights were canceled and, conveniently, every French train was on strike. To say the least, he wasn't going anywhere.

The city itself was really neat. Surrounded by hills that give great vantage points and allow for a bit of exercise, I didn't get too bored in my two full days there. The Sagrada Familia, a modern day church, was stunning. It was designed by the famous Spanish artist 'Goya' and to this day its still under construction (they estimate that it will be finished within the next 20 years). It is unlike any other church I have ever been in. It has a modern design, futuristic sculptures of Jesus and it combines Goya's strong connection with nature with his fate in God.

(On the outside of the church: Jesus at the cross)

(It makes me wonder how they built churches without cranes....)

You might be able to see in the following pictures of the inside of the Cathedral, but Goya had a strong emphasis on light and the outdoors. The pillars that hold the Cathedral up are constructed as if they were trees and small strands of light come in from above as if penetrating a roof of leaves. On the outside Goya constructed pillars topped with different types of fruit and animals. Being that I have never been much a church goer but have always loved the outdoors, I found the Sagrada Familia to be particularly appealing. One of the things that Goya said before he died was that he wanted the church to be a place for everybody, regardless of their religious beliefs. I'd say that he accomplished that goal.

(The one on the left is of the actual pillars themselves

and the one of the right shows how the design

follows that of a tree)

(Side note: putting pictures into this thing is one of the more frustrating things I've had to do)

Below are some photos of the famous Park Guël. Hiking around there was a lot of fun. There is a plaza full of performers, tourists and local kids, but if you go a bit higher you can get away from just about everybody else and find that inner nature of yours.

Anyways I know that this blog is pretty bland in terms of stories, but if you find some other blogs written around these dates I'm sure you'll have some fun. My hostel was full of kids trying to get to England who were stuck for a full week in Barcelona. I remember one kid who told me that he decided to take a quick, 5 euro flight (ryanair sometimes has ridiculous deals) from London to Palma de Mallorca for one night on Thursday then got the last flight out from Palma to Barcelona on Friday (where he had just been the week before) and last I knew he was going to try to hitchike to France and the take a ferry into England and try to get there that friday (i left on monday). Makes me feel almost guilty about how smooth I had it.... though I shouldn't let my confidence get too high because there is supposedly a strike planned for British Airways and my trip home just so happens to be smack in the middle of that..... Lets hope for the best and prepare for the worst I suppose...

Madre Mia

2010-04-22T18:56:00.001+02:00

Week numero 2:

This week, in stark contrast to the first, didn't actually have any plans to begin with, so I suppose that nothing could get in the way of the fulfillment of any of those not made plans. I had school/work until Thursday and my mom and host mom (Carmen) spent the days together. My mom also got to know a few of my coworkers at the hotel pretty well and even introduced my host mom to them (which if you know my host mom its pretty impressive that my mom convinced her to go in, because Carmen is probably the shiest person you will ever meet) when I wasn't there. The only kind of tough part was the food. We eat lots of meat, little vegetables and everything is loaded with olive oil and salt - which takes away from the healthiness of the would be healthy foods. Carmen made a big effort to make more salads and other sorts of greens, but even a salad that she claimed had no salt on it tasted like sea water. In terms of the food those 4 days might have felt a little bit long and I think that when we left to go to Granada on Thursday afternoon the thing that we were most looking forward to was the ability to chose our own food.

We took the train from Sevilla to Granada, about a 3 hour train ride, Thursday after my classes and arrived around 9:30 or so that night. The hotel said it was located a little bit outside of the city but within 'striking distance' of the center, so, being that 'striking distance' could have a number of interpretations, we were a bit worried about the location - luckily it ended up being about a 7 minute walk from the busiest street in Granada. We went there that night for tapas and frozen yogurt and then watched Boy Meets World in spanish before we went to bed. (I had forgotten how much I like that show, I think it is the one show that I ever actually watched as a kid). The next day we got up 'early' at 9 (like I said in that previous blog update I never knew that my parents had it in them to sleep so long) and got ready for a big Granadan day. First thing on the agenda was the Alhambra. Built by the Moorish in the 1300s it was used as a refuge for the King and his family. It is a string of palaces built together interlaced with beautiful gardens and water features. It is located on a hill overlooking all of Granada and offers spectacular views of the snow capped Sierra Nevadas in the distance. It is also the biggest tourist attraction in Spain - something that we had to learn the hard way when I went to buy the Alhambra tickets 4 days before (all of them had already been sold out so we just bought the garden tickets which, although we didn't have full access to the palaces, was still beautiful). The history there is really impressive and, although it is very well preserved, back 500 years ago when it was in its hay-day and all the paint was bright and colorful it really must have been a sight to behold. Anyways we spent a good couple of hours there and then walked back down through the woods into a little plaza with a creek running through it in the very upper corner of Granada. From the plaza there is just one tiny little street that follows the stream back into the city center, slowly opening up until the city surrounds you.

From there I told mom that we had to find this Kebab place (Kebab's in Spain aren't like the typical meat on a stick deliciousness we like to think about, but are kind of like a burrito - chicken, lettuce, tomato, beats and really yummy, spicy sauces wrapped in a tortilla type object) where I had ate the first time I was in the city about 5 months before hand. It is in a part of the city known as the Albacin (full of tiny streets that weave there way through white houses up to another great view of Granada) which isn't exactly the easiest place to navigate, but somehow we made it there without much of a problem. After lunch I figured my mom would want to do that Spanish thing she had fallen so in love with and take a siesta, but we were both feeling like doing more stuff so we got on one of those hop-on hop-off bus tours of Granada. This is probably the best, most efficient way to get a feel for the layout and structure of a city because the bus does a big loop and stops at all of the biggest attractions. We weren't really planning on getting off anywhere, but we stopped at this science museum park and both of us immediately knew that we wouldn't be returning to the hotel anytime in the near future. We went to an exhibit on Darwin, an animal exhibit and a butterfly pavilion but the coolest was definitely an exhibit on the human body. There were a lot of interactive activities and probably the most surprising bit of information that we stumbled upon is that the human lung has a surface are of about 70m squared - that is roughly the same area as one side of the tennis court! There was also an 'operation' type game where you have to put all of the body parts back in the body and i was very impressed with my moms knowledge of what us humans have on the inside. We then played a game where two people sit on opposite ends of a table, put their foreheads against a piece of steel and try to mentally push this metal ball in a cage towards the other person. It says that the key is to not actually think about anything and to relax the brain as best you can - i've never thought a had a very relaxed brain but according to that game im good at not thinking haha (i dont know it that is necessarily a good thing though). There was also a birds of prey show which was pretty awesome. They walk around with hawks, eagles and owls then let them fly and give them fake prey to try to catch - most impressive was definitely the eagle.

By the time we finally got back to the hotel room almost 12 hours had past since we left that morning. The thing is that we didn't feel like we were really pushing ourselves to do as much as possible or anything and we didn't arrive to the room exhausted, but we still saw as much of Granada as one could see in one day. For the evening we went to a restaurant where my mom got a salad that made me think we were in America or something and then we went to a cool little arabic cafe and got some green tea/banana smoothie! with whip cream!

The next morning we had to catch a train at 11:30am but we still managed to do some productive things: buy the host family a picture book of granada then walk back to that little albacin area and get some bracelets (that we could have very easily gotten the day before, but there wasn't any time pressure on us the day before and the fact that we couldn't make any wrong turns or we would miss the train this time around made it more exhilarating). On the way to by the bracelets we also walked into a part of the city that we didn't even know had existed and that one could easily spend another day in (reason to go back). The last night in Sevilla we spent trying to get the tv to show the game between Real Madrid and Barcelona (the most highly anticipated game of the year in Spain - and of course our tv decided to give us problems with that one single channel) and then we got up at 5 the next morning to head to the airport of Sevilla.

Anyways I would say that those were two fun, eventful, memorable weeks! My mom and I were just saying that if that volcano had erupted a bit sooner she might have just had to stay here until I leave! If only if only. In other news its the famous feria of sevilla right now and it is absolutely everything it was ever built up to be. Haven't been to bed before 6 am yet this week and i highly doubt that that will be changing tonight. I also went to barcelona this past weekend so thats what the next update will be about!

Thank you for coming madre y padre of mine!

Family Fun

2010-04-13T22:11:00.002+02:00

Week 1 (mom and dad)-

Allow me to begin this blog by saying that this vacation went nothing as planned. I've actually really began to question the use of making plans, for so often they seem to fail. And its not to say that we didn't have a good time, in fact we probably have more stories/memories now than we would have if things had actually gone according to plan. I think that one of the best parts of plans is the stories that come about upon their falling through. So, with plans in my mind, I'm am going to divide this part of the blog into 2 versions - 1) the plans or, how the trip would have been had everything gone according to plan and 2) how it actually went down.

1) My dad would arrive in Sevilla at 2. My mom would arrive at 3. I would go to the airport to pickup my dad and then we would wait until 3 for my mom to arrive. From there we would take a bus to the hotel where I work.

2) We would spend tuesday and wednesday in sevilla and take in as much of the Semana Santa as we could - we would also eat lunch at my host parents house/take them out to dinner one night.

3) Thursday morning we would go to Granada where we would see the Alhambra and spend one night

4) We would go to Ronda on Friday where we would spend two nights

5) Still partly related with number 4, Saturday we would go to Gibraltar for the day and then go back to Ronda for the night

6) We would return to Sevilla Sunday and my dad would fly out Monday

There were also 2 things that my dad simply had to do: 1) Go to Gibraltar 2) Eat the infamous Iberian ham (and, if we go back about 2 weeks, he was also set on making it to Africa).... lets see exactly which one of these was accomplished...

Now, for the real version...

1) I waited in the airport for an hour and the first parent of mine that I saw coming through the gates was my mom. What happened, one might be so inclined as to ask?? Well, my dad had a problem with his ticket and had to change everything while in Mexico, 2 days before coming to Spain. Did I have any idea of this? No. Does it matter? Not really. I mean I could go into more detail about how I spent an hour running through the airport, looking for him in every corner, getting chased by the security guards and hiding in the bathroom, but that wouldn't be altogether factual.... Seeing my mom walk through those doors was a cool feeling. It had been so long since I had seen my parents (since August 18) and upon seeing her it felt like it had been a matter of years and a matter of minutes since I had last seen her all at the same time. She told me that my dad would get in in about two hours, so we decided it would be best to take the bus to the hotel and then for me to come back and get him later. The bus, however, didn't exactly go according to plan (haha). It was supposed to drop us off at about 5 minutes walking distance from the hotel, but due to Semana Santa (which consists of parades all throughout the city for one week) the route was cut way short and we were forced to find other modes of transportation. We got a taxi, there's probably never been a taxi driver in a worse mood than this one, and he took us another half of the way there then demanded that we exit the vehicle as he couldn't go any further (a lie). But we really didn't want to be in there anyways so we did as told. And, what did we exit that taxi to??? A furious flurry of ferocious formidable rain. Lowering our heads into the head on rain, we made the push towards to the hotel (about 10 minutes away walking). From there I showed mom the the best room in the hotel (that my high ranking stature in Hotel Murillo had won them) and then went to pick up my dad. His flight arrived on time, the bus went all the way to the stop closest to the hotel and the sun was shining. About a stark a contrast as one can find to that first journey to the hotel. From there both of my parents were exhausted, and rightfully so, so I decided to be a gracious guest and let them rest until the following day.

2) I guess, to my astonishment now that I think about it, that Tuesday actually did go more or less according to plan. The first part of the day we spent walking around some historic sites of Sevilla (places that I hadn't even been) and ate lunch at a restaurant that I had made reservations for at 3pm. Following lunch my dad and I went shoe shopping and my mom went back to the hotel to rest a bit. I never realized that my dad knew so much about shoes, but he analyzed those things like a Darwin must have analyzed those animals when forming his theory on evolution. Lets just say that I have absolutely no doubt that I got the best pair of shoes available to me in all of Sevilla. That walk back to the hotel though, it was like trying to get through wall upon wall of Denver Broncos lineman (they best of the best). We kept running into procession after procession, each time having to back track and find a new way of getting around them. The walk there: 15 minutes. The walk back: 1 hour and 15 minutes. The shoes: 90 euros. Sevilla: crowded. Sevilla during Semana Santa: well not priceless, but thanks to hotel murillo not too bad either.

3) If Tuesday went more or less according to plan, Wednesday made up for the rarity. Although we did actually spend the whole day in Sevilla, as planned, the place where we spent the day wasn't exactly what we had in mind... la urgencia. The emergency room. My mom had been having respiratory/fatigue problems and we decided that the best thing to do would be to go the hospital and see if we could get any oxygen out of them. That was the main objective: the oxygen. 7 hours later we would achieve the goal. We went through the entry phases incredibly fast. Within 30 minutes of entering we were already talking to a doctor although there looked to be people who had been waiting for much longer than us (something we would soon understand). I learned that being able to speak/understand spanish in daily life and being able to do the same when it comes to medical issues are two entirely different things. Via my dads vast medical knowledge (the doctor actually asked me if my dad was a 'medico' back in the US), my moms spanish and my translating we were able to get the main points across. After about a 20 minute meeting we were sent back into the waiting room where we would realize the true function of the 'waiting' room. We had to be in there at least 4 maybe 5 hours. The waiting room was a complete contrast to a waiting room that one would find in the US. There were no cellphones. There were no books/magazines. There were no impatient people. There also weren't, oddly enough, anybody that looked to be in dire, 'emergency room' conditions. We came to the conclusion that we had been seen so quickly because we could have had a very serious problem, but once the doctors realized that it could wait, they felt content with putting us where everybody else with the 'it can wait' problems were. It actually seemed to be more of a social event than anything. The patients were all there with there family members or friends, chatting and chatting and chatting as if they could go on forever. Nobody, aside from my dad =), was showing any sort of impatience and they all seemed to be perfectly content where they were. Anyways we were eventually called in again and the doctor told us that she wanted to do a scan of my moms lungs to make sure that something wasn't wrong (i wish I could say that in more sophisticated terms, but I forget all of the medical terminology - maybe when my mom and dad read this they could put a little comment down there at the bottom of the page describing what the doctor was actually worried about). We weren't too excited about doing the scan, however, and considered calling the doctor back in the US. That seemed to throw our doctor off a little bit (no questioning the doctors knowledge) so we decided against getting a second opinion and did what was recommended. Luckily nothing was seriously wrong and we eventually left the hospital with what we had came for - the oxygen. That experience, to say the least, isn't one that any of us will forget, and all in all we were actually pretty impressed with the Spanish health care system. They had treated us foreigners with as much care and attention to detail as if we were any normal Spanish patient, they didn't skip any steps, they gave us the oxygen without any problem as well as gave my mom a steroid shot without telling her anything (that shot made her feel great for the next 8 days) and all for free (my dad estimated that in the US that day would have cost us $3000).

3) To say the least, we didn't go to Granada on Thursday. Instead we went to my host parents house and ate a huge, huge lunch. My mom was starting to feel better so it only made since that my dad would get start to feel under the weather - in this case it was the stomach. My mom contributes it to his eating too much, but, even if it was, I don't think that you can blame him for overindulging. My host parents put out the best food that I had seen in the house since my arrival and my dad finally got that Iberian Jamon that he had been waiting for for so long. (He also was the life of the party but it was the last we would see of him until 11 am the next day.) After lunch we tried to change the return flight for mom for something a bit sooner but the prices to do it were ridiculous. The solution we eventually found was to overnight a portable oxygen unit that my mom would be able to use walking around in Spain and take on the plane rides home. (That unit made it as far as customs in Madrid before it was turned around and sent back to the US)..... It was really nice for my parents to finally meet my host parents. I know that the moms had been looking forward to it for a long time and they definitely enjoyed getting to know each other (and they would spend almost all of the following week together too).

4) We actually made it to Ronda this day! My mom decided that she was feeling up for it and we took a 2 hour bus ride from Sevilla to Ronda friday afternoon. And it was definitely worth it. Ronda is an absolutely awe-inspiring, take your breath away little town. It is built on a huge cliff with a river running through it (though it is 100 meters below town level). I could describe it more, but I'm going to adhere to the saying that a picture paints 1000 words and just put up a couple of pictures here..... We even stayed up late (in American terms) to see the procession pass through town! My parents sure adapted quickly to the Spanish lifestyle - siestas during the days, 'late' nights and sleep in mornings - if you know my parents very well be careful what your around because your probably about to throw up your arms and fall over backwards in your chair out of amazement, but they slept until 10:30!!!!!!! that morning. At least 12 hours of sleep. I have never been so surprised in all my life.

5/6) Gibraltar never happened. My Dad's flight was changed to Sunday morning so we left Ronda saturday afternoon to get back to Sevilla. That night we had a few guests over and we had a fun discussion about the differences between Spain and the US in terms of taxes/health care/ect. The next morning my dad had to wake up at 5am to get to the airport for his 7 o'clock flight.

And that concludes week 1! My mom stayed an extra week but I don't think I have it in me to do 3 blog updates in one day, so I will get to that later. You will also notice that there are not any pictures (even though I specifically said that there were in the ronda blog) but that will change here in the near future. I would give an exact date on when the future updates/changes will be, but that would be a plan and I'm just not into doing that sort of thing! Though it could make for a good story....

Friend Time!

2010-04-13T20:19:00.001+02:00

Well it looks like another overwhelming gap between blog entries has arisen. For that I am sorry. But after this entry there will be another one very soon, maybe even on the same day(!!!) so hopefully that will make up for any hard feelings. Anyways I'm going to go back in time here and start this blog update the 18th of March....

My friend Ryan was coming to visit!! He was to arrive on Friday the 18th of March. Being that the tickets directly into Sevilla were so expensive however, we decided that it would be better if he flew into Madrid and I met him there. Which, as I have learned time and time again this year, that was much easier said than done. At first I looked for plane tickets (to get me from sevilla to madrid) and I thought that I had found one at a reasonable price, which would have been a miracle - but, alas, no miracle was to be involved (although the airport said 'sevilla' it was actually an airport in a tiny town about 2 hours outside of the city). With the option that would have made my life almost completely stress free out of the discussion, I was forced to go to plan B - the bus. My host brother, Moises, decided that he wanted to come with me (and this actually was a miracle - I don't know if I have mentioned before that he is always on his computer, but he is... his computer broke however so he decided to come with me and meet up with his cousins whom live in Madrid) so I had to look for bus tickets for the both of us. I thought everything was under control, (the tickets purchased and all) but at 10 o'clock the night we were supposed to leave I realized that I had only reserved the 1am bus tickets, not actually bought them. Realizing this minor detail I went to buy them only to find that they I had to have done it 24 hours before the bus departed and that there were none remaining. To put it simply that little mistake sent the whole house into a panic (thats the problem when once you start traveling with other people). To make a long story a little bit less cumbersome (and to not wear-out my writing desire in the description of a single event) Moises and I were rushed to the bus station by his Dad where we got the last 2 seats on the 11 o'clock bus. We then arrived in Madrid at 4 in the morning, waited until the train station opened, took a total of three metros to a different bus station where we caught a bus to his cousins house - hour of arrival: 8 am. I guess it gave Moises a little better idea of what my life had been like more or less during that month of travel.

From there Moises and I went with his cousin and his cousins mom to pick up my friend at the airport. (Looking back on this we were incredibly lucky that the plane arrived on time and that I made it to the airport because we didn't have any hostel for the night or, for that matter, any form of a plan B whatsoever.) Upon arrival the only thing that Ryan really wanted to do was sleep, (as always is with overseas flights) but unfortunately for him he would get very little of that in the following days. That day we went to a tour of the Real Madrid soccer stadium (absolutely massive) and showed Ryan a bit of the city center. The first night in Madrid we stayed in a hostel and went out for some tappas with a friend of mine that I had previously met in Sevilla (I somehow found same tappas street that I had gone to over 6 months before hand) and then watched some Spongebob Square Pants spanish version on the hostel TV.

The following day we had our very own choufer. Moises, not the previously mentioned Moises but the cousin of Moises whose name conveniently happens to be Moises, drove us around the city and stopped at all of the premier locations. Ryan and I also decided that we wanted to go to the Real Madrid game that night so we got to the stadium right when they started selling the tickets and stood in a line that took about 30 minutes to get to the front of. Not to bad... only it was the wrong line. The other line, the correct line, went about 2 blocks and would have taken a minimum of 2 or 3 hours (without any guaranteed tickets waiting for us). Ryan hadn't come all the way to Spain to just give in like that, however, so we resorted to the scalpers. The tickets ended up being 80 euros a piece and we sat at the top top top tippity top, but sometimes you just need to live a little I suppose. That night we stayed at the cousins house (which meant not going to sleep until 8am) and the next day we went to the bus station planning to go to Cadiz but eventually ending up in Sevilla (a story that is a little bit too complicated to describe).

We spent the rest of the week in the wonderful Spanish beach city of Cadiz (a short hour and a half drive from Sevilla) and Sevilla. Cadiz had something similar to a tornado passing through it for both the days we were there (to avoid any confusion I'm just going to go ahead and say that that was an exaggeration, though it was definitely windy) but when you go somewhere just for a beach nothing is going to stop you from doing those beachy activities such as swimming, sand castles and laying out. Upon our return to Sevilla I had to go to school/work but Ryan has two other friends from school studying here so I don't think that he felt too lonely. He left the following friday morning to go to Alicante, Spain for the weekend and I started getting ready for the next visitors - mis padres!! This is getting its own blog, however, so i'm going to end this one by thanking ryan for coming!!! although i don't think he is ever going to read this.... if you actually do read this ryan im sorry for saying that you never would, but if you don't read it I would like for everybody else to know that i thank ryan for coming and that you guys should come too! 6 weeks left....

2010-03-15T23:43:00.002+01:00

O ya, one more thing. I think that it is worth noting that this has been the rainiest winter that Sevilla has had in over 40 years. Today is the first time that we have had two days in a row without rain since December. (that might be a minor exaggeration, but I don't think it is).

No news is good news...

2010-03-15T23:27:00.000+01:00

Or so my mom always says... However I do apologize for the lack of recent blog updates. I really can't attribute it to anything other than being busy. And, when not busy, lazy. But now feels like an appropriate time to get back in the groove. Lets see, I guess it would be most logical if I just began from where I left off....

The new group of students arrived a few days after I posted the last update and, unfortunately, Sevilla seems to be overflowing with Americans now. CIEE, the program I am with, has 4 sections (each with about 80 students) and then there are at least 5 other similar organizations operating in the city. If you wanted to you could easily spend your life as if you were in America - talking in English, hanging out with Americans, playing football and frisbee, ect. I don't want that though, so I try my best not to do. I have a roomate now (because there weren't enough families to put only one student in every house) and we do our best to only speak spanish with each other, but sometimes the urge to fortify some experience with the lovely language of English is too much to overcome. The first two weeks of this program we had an "intensive session" - the name barely does it justice. I was in Group 1 and my class was "español de negocios". We had class every day for 3 hours and on top of that we had out of class projects/assignments/homework and a 2 page essay almost every night (we ended up writing 8 essays in the two week span). But, in spite (or maybe due to) all of that, I learned un monton. (I seem to have forgotten how to say that in English, but it sounds much better to write that than simply, 'a lot'). The class mainly focused on the economy - terms/definitions/understanding them/how the economy works - things like that. It was really interesting and the professor was great - in fact he was so good that I felt as though I had to have him again for the regular session, which led to a week of the all too common (at least for me) stressful, ever unknowing class changing routine. But I did eventually make it into his class (Comparative and Contrastive Grammer) and its by far the best class I have right now. The professor is hilarious. He likes saying "I vant to die. GivE me anthrax, i vant to die" when somebody answers a question wrong. My favorite quote by him is probably: Thine love is my sweet sweet dictatorship.

Lets seeee what else what else... I haven't done a whole lot of traveling, though I did go back to Bologna, Italy to visit the Italian friends that I met in Switzerland. It was a kind of neat feeling because as I was stepping off of the plane I thought to myself that exactly one month ago to the day I was stepping off of a plane in the same airport with absolutely no idea of what the next 25 days of my life would bring me. This time it was a little bit more comforting knowing that I was going to see friends and wouldn't have to worry about anything, but I have to admit that I felt a little bit proud of myself when I thought that, if I hadn't done what I did, a) I wouldn't be getting of the plane in Bologna and b) I definitely wouldn't be going to visit Italian friends. Anyways, back to the story, I stayed in Bologna for three nights. My friends called me the "bad luck with food guy" because it seemed that everything I managed to order (in Italy, of all places) either wasn't of high quality or simply wasn't what I was expected. I remember one conversation that went something like this:

Me: "I haven't ate in forever and I have this overwhelming craving for some authentic, meaty Italian pizza. With lots of meat. In fact that is my main requirement. Just meat. Pizza with meat. That is all I ask for"
Italian friends: "Ok well here is the carne pizza. It is meat. Only meat. That is probably what you want"
Me: "Well that sounds enticing, but here I see pepperoni. I think I will just go with that. Because we have pepperoni in America and I know what it is and I feel comfortable with it and I know that it would really be a great decision"
Italian friends: "Well thats not very meaty...."
Me: "It may not be as meaty as the carne pizza, but pepperoni should be enough. I really love pepperoni."
Italian friends: "Ok, if you say sooooo"
The point of this story is that 'pepperoni' in Italian means 'peppers'... so my pizza was full of peppers. With not one pepperoni on it. It was one of the biggest let downs of my life. I thought for sure they were joking when they handed me the peppery pizza but, well, they weren't. It was one of the bigger let downs I have ever experience. I was so excited to eat that pizza. And then all my hopes and dreams shattered with a mere glance... And that's just one example of my troubles with food in italy. Moral of the story: Next time I want some high quality, 'authentic' Italian food I will just go America.

Other than my food luck, however, Italy was a blast. We had a little dinner party with about 15 italians and myself and I felt like a superstar with all the attention they were giving me/questions they were asking me.

Aside from Italy there isn't much traveling I have done. I went to the pueblo of my Señora for a weekend and it was a lot of fun - much different from city life. We stayed in her parents house and her whole family (3 sisters) came from across Spain with their children - one big family reunion. Being here for a year has definitely helped me become more integrated with the culture and the family I live with and experiences like this I will never forget. I have also been taking a class of the 'Sevillana' - the famous dance of Sevilla and I'm starting to look more and more like a native Sevillan. I also am doing an internship in Hotel Murillo (if anybody wants to look it up on google or something) in the center of Sevilla. Its a challenging job because they put me out in front of everybody at the reception and I have to talk to the clients, check them in and out and enter all of the data into the computer. I like it though because it forces me to use my Spanish and puts me in an environment where I have no other choice other than to learn.

This week is midterm week so I have 3 exams coming up (all on Thursday) and then my friend Ryan is coming to visit me for a week from the states and my parents come the following week. And anybody else who wants to drop by is more than welcome! - thanks to all those who stayed on me about the blog or I don't know if it would have ever gotten updated. I'll be sure to do it more frequently/give more detailed information from here on out! Hasta pronto!

Sweet Sweet Sevilla (January 19th)

2010-01-19T16:29:00.002+01:00

I'm back! I left Nice, France at 10 am yesterday and, 22 hours later, I stepped off the train in Sevilla. It took a total of 4 trains (though one doesn't really count because it just went from one train station in Barcelona to another) but I made it! Though I must admit that exhaustion doesn't fully convey how tired I feel right now. Hecho polvo would be better. Estoy hecho polvo. Its one of the first expressions I learned in Spain that people use only in the most 'tired' of circumstances. It was nice coming back, though my host family had changed my room and left all of my things kind of strewn across the bed and floor, but I think I'll be ok. As long as I can find enough space to sleep, I'll deal with all of that later. Im also going to start getting some pictures up her to beautify this blog a bit. Not yet, but soon. I kind of feel like I should write a little conclusion to my one month long European, train travel adventure - pay it the respect that it deserves...

I guess that you could say I left Sevilla one month ago hoping to come back with something new. Not a thing, but an idea. Not necessarily 'answers', per say, but something that would help me view the world in a new light. It was an adventure, to say the least. Full of its ups and its downs. The joy of meeting new people from all over the world interlaced with the solitude, and sometimes the pain, of being alone. The frustration of not being able to find a hostel complimented by the euphoria, the sense of accomplishment, when I actually would find it. The irritation of having to do it all alone, of having to figure it all out by myself, but the satisfaction that I was able to do it. I had to prove it to myself - that I could be fine, that I could make it through any type of situation, any number of obstacles - and I did.

This month forced me to open myself up to anybody from anywhere. It taught me how to make great friends in the span of 3 or 4 days. It taught me people skills, travel skills, perseverance skills. How to cope with mistakes and then how to learn from them. How to be more aware, more alert, of everything going on around me. How to feel comfortable and at ease in foreign situations. There were times when I doubted myself, asked myself if I made the right decision to stay in Europe and travel over the holidays alone. Now I know for certain, beyond a doubt, that I did make the right choice. At the very least I could have gone to Prague, Amsterdam and Germany with two of my friends from the program, but then I would only have been on my own for one week. Instead I chose to take the road less traveled. It reminds me of this little magnet my mom once gave me, I don't remember the exact words, but its something like this: Two paths in a forest and I, I take the one less traveled by. Via that less traveled path I have grown, I have come into my own. Become more of a man. More confident, more self-assured. More proud, but more humble. I have learned to embrace what is new, to live in the moment, but at the same time remember and cherish what is old. I will never have these exact experiences again, but I will hold onto them forever.

I wanted to come away with something new, and I have. New friends, new stories, new pictures, new views. Life can be broken down into two extreme conditions - living in complete solitude and living in the constant presence of other people. I think that in order to be happy, I must always do two things: 1) maintain a strong connection with nature and 2) find a balance between those two extremes of solitude and company. In solitude, within ourselves, is where we find answers and in company is where we give those answers meaning - where we give those answers life. I have learned to love and enjoy my time with others, but also to treasure those moments in which I only have my own thoughts to keep me company. This month can be defined in the people that I have met, and what I had to go through, alone, in order to meet those people. I've learned to not let myself hold onto regrets or, better said, to not let past decisions that I would later regret weigh me down. (I don't mean this in terms of conscious decisions that go against my values - that would be worth regretting - but common, everyday choices that, looking back on it, I would do differently). Zurmatt is the perfect example. I went there with one goal - to see the Matterhorn. I spent 60 euros getting there, 50 euros staying there for one night (the most expensive hostel I stayed in - and far from the best), plus money for food. And the entire time the Matterhorn was engulfed in a thick layer of clouds, from its base to its peak. I even got up at 6:30 am to hike up there to try to see more to no avail. Moral of the story, I could have let this weigh me down. I could have let it cut into my enjoyment of the proceeding days; but instead I decided to accept it and learn from it - for example, if I ever go again, I will be sure to check the weather reports first.

I've learned to not let little things get to me. A lost jacket here, a forgotten notebook there. Dirty sheets, messy bathrooms, uncomfortable beds. People like this guy that was sitting next to me on an 8 hour train ride - he had his music, hard core heavy metal, blasting and was breathing obnoxiously loud out of his nose the entire time. I've learned that the best way to cope with misfortune, at least the kind that I was prone to experiencing, is through laughter. It keeps you light of heart and mind and thinking positively. I've learned to take advantage of every opportunity - something that I think I knew beforehand but I had never really put into practice as I did on this trip - like going to the Fifa Headquarters in Zürich, though it was way out of the way, then proceeding to ask for a job and kiss the world cup trophy. At the same time, however, I've learned to not get upset when I couldn't or just simply didn't do something that I wanted to do, such as visit the so proclaimed "must-see's" of every city. I've had more opportunities to practice my patience (though I still don't think that I can fully say that I have 'learned' patience yet haha) whether it be waiting for trains to arrive for full nights in random train stations or waiting on people.

I've learned that an unanticipated bump in the road or last minute change in plans can lead to some of my favorite memories, like when you mess up a line in a painting you can work with it to create something more unique and more beautiful than you could ever imagine. I've learned that it isn't the city or the place that allows me to have a good or bad time, but it is me. It is the attitude that I have, the expression on my face, that ultimately decides whether or not I will enjoy myself. For every down there is an up, or as my cousin Connor once told me, for every rain there is a rainbow. But for every one frown there can be a hundred smiles. For every one cry a thousand laughs. Its all about attitude. Give everything you have to life and life will give everything it has to you. Accept other people into your life and they'll accept you into theirs. Be happy and happiness will find you. Live a life with no regrets and then you will live a life not worth regretting.

V for Venice (14-15)

2010-01-17T23:06:00.003+01:00

To my surprise, after 20 minutes of getting to Venice I was standing in the hostel. Bad Gastein aside, that rarely happens to me. Venice turned out to be a great decision, too. The hostel was a lot of fun, small and sociable, free dinner and breakfast and great people. I didn't do a whole lot of touristy things aside from walk around with a map, but sometimes I think it can be more fun to see a city that way. Grant it you don't learn the history and such that you would with a tour guide, but you have to be more alert in where you are going, knowing that it is up to you to get back. I spent most of the day with two australians and a canadian. We took a boat out to an island where there was a glass blowing show which was amazing - you try to watch every little action as carefully as possible, but suddenly a ball of hot glass has transformed into a beautiful, curving vase. It happened right in front of my eyes, but really it didn't because I couldn't see it happen. It just did. Kind of like how people age. We spent the rest of day wandering the streets of Venice, taking pictures at every canal (a lot of pictures) and eating some authentic Italian pizza and crepes... even though I thought that those were French.

I woke up the next morning (Saturday) with absolutely no idea of where I was going to go. I eventually decided that I would just go book the night train from Milan to Barcelona (being that I wanted to be in Sevilla on Sunday) but, and this one hadn't happened to me yet, I was told that the train only runs on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Not only that but the reservation fee for the train was a ridiculous 70 euros (its a 'special' train, they said) - even with my rail pass. I asked for different routes but these italian train people are trained to try to swindle as much money out of you as possible, so even if there were other routes that day that didn't have reservation fees, I wasn't given any help. So i was forced to get creative. In order to avoid the fee and avoid waiting around until Monday, I eventually figured it out that I would have to spend one night in Milan, catch two trains to get to Nice, France the next day; spend a night in Nice (where I am now), catch a train to Montpellier and then to Barcelona the following day (tomorrow, which is monday) and then hop on a night train to Sevilla, arriving tuesday morning. In other words, it was and is all very confusing. But I think it speaks to the lessons that i've learned since beginning this journey a month ago. Sure, I would have been disappointed in having to pay 70 euros and wait around until monday, but I sincerely think that I would have done it. I wouldn't have known, much less even considered, doing it any other way. As my dad says wisdom is putting to use those things that you've learned along the way; so I think that I am a little bit wiser now when it comes to traveling via trains. Lets hope so at least, I mean I haven't actually got to sevilla yet.... But, if anything, taking this more confusing route has allowed me to see the beautiful coastlines of western italy and the south of france. They are definitely places that I need to go back to. Huge, towering cliffs shooting out of the baby blue ocean, sprinkled with little houses here and there amidst lush, green jungle like forestry. It makes for a beautiful and incredibly enticing scene.

Unfortunately i got to Nice as the sun was setting down, but my train to Montpellier doesnt leave until 10 tomorrow morning so that gives me some time to wander down to the sea side before I head out.

If all goes according to plan, the next update should be on a train to Sevilla!

Skiin with Norwegian (Bad Gastein, Austria 11-13)

2010-01-14T09:23:00.001+01:00

Bad Gastein, Good skiing

This 2^nd ski excursion for me was far better than the first. To begin with, getting to the hostel didn’t require any nights spent in train stations. It did require two trains from Budapest, but the hostel was a convenient 80 meters from the train station and made for an easy find. I was in a 16 bed dorm so I was a little worried that it could prove challenging to meet people (I guess it kind of goes against logic, but I’ve found that when there are less people it is usually easier to meet somebody) but I met some norwegians almost as soon as I got there. There were 13 of them in a 4 month program in which they travel the world skiing and going through avalanche courses, and they were in Bad Gastein for 1 week. The next day I went skiing with them and I was very lucky that I did. To the tourist (which in this case was me – they were too, but had already been skiing there for 4 days) it didn’t look like there was much to the mountain. It was very steep, but narrow as well and from the gondola one could only see two actual runs on the entire face of the mountain. Luckily, these guys knew the secret stashes and we found some great fields of fresh, untouched powder. Not quite as deep as some of the stuff in Aspen, but fluffy, soft and b-e-a-utiful. I did have one consistent problem, however. Here were these hard core norwegians with the most up to date equipment – thick powder ski’s, revolutionary boots, the latest and greatest bindings, avalanche beacons, ect – and all I had were the most basic 26 euro rental ski’s. The ‘basic’ skies had a deal with the hostel, which is why I was able to get them so cheaply for two days, if I had gone up to the ‘pro’ ski the price would have more than doubled.

Anyways, it wasn’t a huge deal until my ski’s started popping off like fire crackers on the 4^th of July. It took almost nothing, a tiny pump, thick powder, too much pressure, too much speed (meaning about 3 miles an hour) and off they would fly. Sometimes I would be going at a normal pace on a groomed run then I would see a ski careening down the mountain in front of me, look down, and notice that, “hey, I only have one ski on”. That first day I lost my ski’s a total of 20 times. No joke. And, of those 20, there was only one occasion that I can remember when they actually should have come off.

I have to admit that it was funny though and made for good conversation on the lifts and after skiing. Aside from the fact that I spent half of the day with no ski’s on, the norwegians were impressed with my skiing. They laughed at it, calling it “old school” – legs together, lots of tight turns; I have my mom and Uncle Tom to thank for that – but they couldn’t deny being a bit impressed. The second day of skiing was a bit better in terms of the losing the skies problem because I tightened the bindings as much as possible. All in all, however, it was too full days of skiing on stuff other than ice – the makings of any successful ski trip.

Bad Gastein is a small town that makes its money off of the tourist industry. I was there for three nights and didn’t meet so much as one Austrian. Everybody - the workers, the skiers - everybody was either Norwegian, Swedish or Danish; which I didn’t mind because they were all friendly and fluent in English. (Not only do they start learning it from a young age, but all of the American movies/tv shows that they watch have subtitles, meaning they are not dubbed. This is a stark contrast to countries like Spain in which all of the movies are dubbed over and the people are terrible at English). All of these Norwegians and Sweds and Danish people didn’t actually live there per say but were on vacation or renting out an apartment for the winter months, working the nights and skiing during the days.

It is nearing the end of my vacation! The plan is to be back in Sevilla by Sunday the 17^th. I think I technically have until Tuesday, but I am running out of things to do/the desire to do them. I didn’t decide until this very morning, but I am currently headed towards Venice. As of now I will only be there for one night, (after which I will start the long journey back to Spain, maybe with a night in France) but if I like the city and the hostel I will stay there for two and then head straight back to Spain.

I think that’s about it for now! I did have another glitch in my ever entertaining travels, but nothing too serious. My first train was about an hour late in arriving and when it eventually came I didn’t even see it until it was leaving. There were only two tracks, but a huge train had arrived on the track closest to me (track number one) and my train was supposed to come on track number one so I went to take a quick bathroom break, assuming that I still had some time. However, when I got out and the big train pulled out, and loe and behold there was my train on the other side (track 2) pulling out of the station as well. Even if I had seen it come in I don’t know how I would have gotten over there, because there was no underground passage way and the other train was so long that it would have taken me 5 minutes to walk around. Anyways, that forced me to wait another hour and a half and then catch a bus to Venice from the connecting station (because I missed the train). But I’m on the bus now! Should be in Venice in an hour and at my hostel in an hour and a half…. Keep your fingers crossed! Even though nobody will actually read this until I’m at my hostel being that I don’t have an internet connection….

Austria/Budapest (6/11)

2010-01-12T18:39:00.003+01:00

So lets see, I finished writing my last blog update on a train headed for Salzburg, Austria. Looking back, I see that I wrote that I would be there by 11 that night… I was almost 12 hours off – I finally arrived at 9 the following morning. To begin with, the fast, efficient, reliable, world class Swiss train system did not live up to its billing. There were times when we would stay stopped at train stations for 10 or 15 minutes with nobody boarding or leaving. On the monitors in the aisles they tell you the planned travel time and the actual travel time - it was torturous to say the least; sitting there, not moving, watching our actual arrival time fall further and further behind. I was about 25 minutes late to Salzburg so I missed my connecting train. I asked the information desk for help and they directed me to another train that I could take, only I would have to do another transfer. Heading the said advice, I took that train and upon exiting I asked another worker for directions to Kitsubhel. He pointed me to a train that was about to leave so, without any time to look at the signs for myself, I hopped on it. By the time the train arrived at its final destination we still hadn’t passed the stop that I needed. I got off of the train (by this time it was about 11) and looked for further connections. Unfortunately no trains were running again until 5 am. So here I was, in the middle of Austria, in some tiny, random, tucked away train station in the Alps amidst a snow storm for the ages. I found a tiny room in the tiny station and decided that it would have to serve as my bed room for the night. The room was warm and there were a couple of tin bins that I could curl up on, but it was also where the coffee machine was and, therefore, was full of workers coming in and out of it at all hours of the night. Luckily they didn’t say anything to me, or at least not anything that I understood, so I was able to find a couple of hours of rest. I got up at 5:45 to catch the 6am train that I needed, but (of course) that train was canceled, thus forcing me to wait for the 6:45 train. It was only about a 30-minute ride to St. Johann in Tirol (kitsbuhel), but from there I had to catch a bus to get to my hostel/the mountain. The bus was late in arriving and I was about 5 minutes from getting on the train and going back to Spain when it finally pulled up. The ride to Ellmau (the town where my hostel was) took about 25 minutes and, as if it wasn’t enough, the hostel itself was not easy to find. (It was also a confusing experience because of the number of names this place has – it is technically called “Kitsbuhel” ski area, but it is made up of about 6 other towns all with their own train stations or stations close by. My hostel was located in a town called Ellmau and St. Johann in Tirol was the closest station to the town).

So, quite the experience to say the least! Haha …. Fortunately I was rewarded by two full days of skiing. I got there early in the morning, so I was still able to ski most of the first day and the second day all I had on my agenda was to ski – which I did. The hostel was a family run ordeal and was brand new. The family didn’t actually live there, but they would come by every now and then to check on things. There was also nobody else in the hostel besides me (probably due to its newness) so I had it all to myself for two nights – which was relaxing, but a bit lonely. The skiing itself wasn’t too much to talk about (but I hear that its been like that everywhere this winter). The mountain was huge – the resort is really made up of about 4 or 5 different mountains all connected via gondolas - but every run was crowded and icy. I enjoyed myself though, it had been a while since I skied and, snow or ice, I wasn’t going to complain.

After Ellmau I went to Budapest, Hungary. It was another long day of travel, but that was simply due to the length of the train rides themselves and not any other mishaps. I was supposed to meet my friend at the hostel in Budapest but we randomly ran into each other at the train station and from there we combined our money and went the easy route of taking a taxi to the hostel. Budapest was a pretty neat city. It was rainy and cloudy both days we were there so we never got any really spectacular, awe inspiring views, but it’s a very historical city and it was nice to be with one of my friends for a few days. The best part about it was, without a doubt, a) the fact that
we had some purchasing power for the first time since Morocco and b) it had Mexican food! (the first I have had since I left the States) and, c) the fact that our hostel had football on the tv so we were able to watch a couple of the playoff games. We went to some famous thermal baths that were a lot like the Hot Springs in Glenwood Springs, only this one had a bunch of old men playing games of chess. Now its off to Bad Gastein (another ski resort in Austria, not far from the one I had just been at) for 3 nights!

Bye Bye Switzerland (4/5)

2010-01-10T10:27:00.002+01:00

Leaving Switzerland… It’s a little bit bittersweet for me. Bitter because I have wanted to go to Switzerland for so many years now, but sweet because it is the most expensive place I have ever been and two more days in Switzerland would have ended my journey through Europe right then and there…. When you go into McDonalds for a hamburger and find that the least expensive thing on the menu (Americas version of ‘the dollar menu’) is 3 Franks and the average meal is 12 Franks (more or less 10 dollars I think), you know that something isn’t right. Either the Swiss missed the memo and somehow think that McDonalds

is some of the highest quality gourmet food that you can find, or things are just ridiculously overpriced. I had a burger that wasn’t all that great, so I can attest to the second theory. Switzerland was, however, one of the most stunning, gorgeous places that I have ever gone. I feel like I need to come back sometime during the summer months to better take advantage of the natural beauty that it has to offer. As for seeing the Matterhorn, I woke up at 6:45 that morning to go see for myself the ‘most photographed mountain in the world’. 6:45 was at least 2 hours too early being that it didn’t even get light enough to see more than 15 feet ahead until about 9 am. I was on a mission though, so a little bit of darkness wasn’t about to stop me. I had a train to catch at 11:30 so I walked until about 9:30 to no avail. The clouds in front of the Matterhorn were so thick that by that point I was 60% positive that the mountain didn’t even exist, but was some Swiss lie that in one way or another allowed them to increase their McDonalds prices. I walked back down, got all my stuff together and when I was about 10 minutes from the train station the clouds cleared up just enough to let me see the lower half of the mountain. It wasn’t a lot, but it was all I needed to feel like the journey wasn’t a complete waste. It really did look beautiful though, and fortunately there are plenty of pictures that already exist and a ride in Disney Land, so I had a pretty good imagination of what the upper half of the mountain looked like as I stood peering up at it.

Yesterday I went from Zurmatt to Zürich where I only stayed for one night. This morning I did the one thing that I had to do in Zürich, Switzerland – go to the FIFA headquarters. It is located a good distance outside of the city, but the public transit system is easy to navigate and my two weeks of travel experience made for a relatively easy find. Being there in Zürich, standing outside of those headquarters, not knowing when I would see them again, I knew that I would need to take full advantage of the opportunity. So I walked in, went to the front desk, and asked for a job. I told them that I didn’t care what I would be doing, I would polish the floor, clean the toilets, anything. I told them that I have been a football (soccer) fan all of my life, that I still play regularly and that I am an expert in FIFA. Unfortunately, none of my skills were needed at the moment but they told me to send in a fax or email and they would see what they could do. After that I saw the World Cup replica trophy so I knew that I needed a picture with it. I asked the front desk lady to take a picture of me and, not knowing when I would be with the world cup replica trophy again, I knew that I needed to do something special, so before she could say anything I kissed it. And now I have a sweet picture of me kissing the World Cup trophy. USA all the way baby!!

Anyways as of this very moment I am on a train headed for Salzburg, Austria. From there I have a 10 minute layover – so I really hope that this efficient, on time Swiss travel system lives up to its billing – and then a two hour train ride to a small ski town called Kitzbuhel (I should be there by 11 tonight). I will be in Kitzbuhel for 3 nights so hopefully that translates into 2 full days of skiing. After that I am going to Budapest, Hungary for 3 days where I will meet up with one of my friends from Sevilla. That is all for now! Lets go train!

Also what happened with the Broncos? Marshall and Schefler being demoted for the most important game of the season? And the Broncos apparently not showing up in any way whatsoever? I don’t get it. Maybe its time for a new coach….

Interlaken Italians (30-3)

2010-01-03T20:54:00.008+01:00

(Left: In Florence with Hercules)
Wow, I can't believe how long it has been since I last updated my blog! I mean I guess its really only been about 6 days, but so much has happened that if feels like weeks! My last couple of days in Florence were enjoyable - I toured the academia and saw David, which was much more impressive than I ever imagined, and hung out with my roomates. We all became pretty good friends and I think I'm going to go visit two of the guys in the Netherlands (they are graduate students, studying there until July) and/or in South America at some point (they are from Chile and Columbia).

(Hiking in Interlaken, had to prove that I was there...)

Lets see, so last wednesday I took the train from Florence to Milan to Interlaken. Some of the scenery we passed along the way was absolutely stunning. Small towns on green, rolling hills located on the edge of huge lakes with massive, snow capped mountains rising straight out of the water. I wish I could figure out how to get my pictures up to show everybody! Interlaken itself had me speechless (not that I had anybody to talk to when I arrived haha) and had me thinking of moving there as soon as we reached it. A river runs through the middle of the town, a huge lake is a mere 5 minutes away and jagged peaks lock the town in - I felt like it was as close to Hoovile ("The Grinch") as anybody could ever get. I spent my second day in Interlaken wandering around, climbing hills and exploring the lake side. I don't know if I've ever taken so many pictures in only one day.

(Left: My first impression of Interlaken - I was ready to move there with that one view; the following 3 pictures are of Interlaken)

Anyways, now to explain the title of this blog. One of the beauties (and somewhat nerve-racking) things about staying in hostels is that, every time you open that door to your room, you don't know what your going to find. Are your roomates there? Do you have roomates? Are they American? Are the friendly? Well, I opened the door to my room in Interlaken to find 2 bunkbeds scrunched together, a couple feet of floor space and 3 Italian guys. They seemed nice enough, but they didn't speak English too well and I will admit that I was a bit disappointed at first. But, with anything in life, you just need to give it some time - which, in this case, was about one day. There were 4 other Italians that they were traveling with in an adjoining room and they all invited me to spend New Years Eve with them. We played fusbol, pool, sang, talked and learned about each others culture. They were hilarious guys and a couple were actually very good at english and we became pretty fast friends. The next day I was supposed to leave to another hostel in Interlaken so I didn't think that I would see them again, but the first hostel we were in was overbooked for the next 2 nights and the Italians were kicked out and put in, as luck would have it, my hostel.

The owner of the first hostel told the Italians that he would drive them to the second hostel at around 11 in the morning of the 1st of January and so I decided to wait for them to leave to see if I could hitch a ride too. We woke up at 10, at breakfast, waited until 11, then 12, then 1 and the owner still had not shown up. We went and ate lunch at McDonalds and when we got back he still had not shown up. At around 4 the owner finally got to the hostel and told us that he was in no good state for driving and that we would have to get there ourselves. He gave us directions and told us what bus to take so we all set off down the road, 7 Italians and 1 American, suitcases dragging along behind us as we made our way to Lake Lodge. This hostel was located in Iseltwald, about 30 minutes outside of Interlaken, but there is another Lake Lodge located in a neighboring town 15 minutes outside of Interlaken and, of course, the owner had 'mistakenly' given us those directions. So, after a bus ride, some walking and a little bit of confusion, we showed up at this hostel to see a sign reading "closed until April". At this exact moment, maybe the man above was sad for us, it began to pour. We were about 15 minutes from the nearest bus station and had no idea where we were supposed to go. It was this experience, that easily could have upset about 90% of travelers, that really brought us all together. We joked, laughed, sang in the rain (they love the Beatles, Bob Marley, 'singin in the rain', and blink 182) and eventually made our way to the bus and, miraculously (as it usually is when it comes to me and hostel finding/destinations in general) found the hostel.
(All of the Italians that I met)

We cooked dinner that night (in water that took one hour and 15 minutes to boil) 'murphys law' they all kept saying, and went to Burn together the next day. In those couple of days I learned much much more about Italy, Italians and Italian culture than I did in 4 days in Florence. They are from Bologna and invited me to come visit them around the 15th of January (near the end of my trip). They were probably the most easy going, chill, funny people that I have ever met. They knew more about American movie culture/actors/ect than I did, but it was the first time they had ever met an American and I think its safe to say I gave them a pretty good impression. It was a bit sad leaving, but more adventures/people to meet are ahead!

I am currently in Zurmatt, Switzerland - home of the famous Matterhorn; though unfortunately I have yet to see it as the clouds are covering it in, but I'm hoping to catch a glimpse of it tomorrow morning if I wake up early enough. Its a neat little town (only accessible by train) but incredibly expensive - definitely the aspen of switzerland. I was thinking of skiing here, but I've already wasted enough money in getting here/finding a hostel, so tomorrow I'm probably going to leave and head to Zurich for a couple of nights.

(Above: pondering the next move with Paolo)

I think that about brings everything up to date! Happy 2010! Lets go Broncos!

London to Florence 27/28

2009-12-28T18:30:00.003+01:00

I don’t think that I have ever found myself in a country where I have so little means of communication. I feel almost fluent in Spanish now that I realize how bad my Italian is. But, unfortunately, this fact didn’t occur to me until I landed in Bologna, Italy, yesterday afternoon. Before I get to that though, I think that, once again, it is worth describing my journey to the said location.

I woke up that morning at 7, got on the right metro for London Liverpool Street and arrived with few troubles. The next step was to get a train ticket for the airport, but, as luck would have it, the train was down for the day due to reconstruction. I asked around and eventually found a bus station with buses headed to the airport that came once every half hour. Of course, the bus pulled away just as I arrived. One thing I am much better at now, however, is not getting too upset when things like this happen. I took some deep breaths, realized that it was all out of my control and searched for means of entertainment until the next bus/train/plane/ect. arrived.

I flew out of the same airline that I came in on – RyanAir. This time, however, I had accumulated another bag, which I was planning on putting under the plane. The bag had some of my snow stuff such as pants, jacket, gloves, ect and weighed all of 2 kilograms. The cost to bring it on the plane? An extra 35 euros. So that meant that I had to get creative. I put my jacket and pants on and found little places to hide the other stuff and, looking like I was about to jump off one of those helicopters and start skiing, I boarded the plane. Upon landing I took everything off and put it back into the bag, but it was a pretty toasty plane ride.

So now we are at where I began this blog, Bologna. Like I said, this was the first time I realized how little Italian I actually knew – two words: gratzi and bonjorno. I knew what I had to do to get to Florence, but like all travel in Europe, that proved to be more difficult than I would have desired. I somehow was able to find a bus from the Bologna airport to the Bologna train station and from there I purchased a train ticket to Florence. The first ticket I purchased was for a train out of a different station, however, so I had to repurchase another one which was 20 euros more. The train ride wasn’t bad though, only about an hour, and this time I actually had the address of my hostel and a map from the station to the hostel. It still took some exploring, but with help from a tourist office, I was able to find it without the help of a taxi.

Last night there were two other people in my room, both of whom were traveling together from Boston. We went out to dinner last night and then explored the city, amidst a good deal of rain, today. Four new people just moved in and they all speak Spanish as their main language, so its pretty cool being able to have conversations with them. Tomorrow I have tickets for the Academia (apparently a pretty famous art museum) and I leave for Switzerland on Wednesday.

Also, I am trying to put up pictures because I have a lot but my camera won’t connect to the computer! I will continue trying because right now this blog looks like a book and is in some serious need of beautification.

Italian words that I now know:

Prego/a – used for everything imaginable

Cerna – can be used for hello

I am learning! Jajajaja

1st photo - The famous Florentine Duomo Cathedral (first to use a dome like structure - which you can't see here jaja)
2nd photo - 2 very strong men... must be gods or something

Troubles with Travel - London, England (23-27)

2009-12-28T16:08:00.003+01:00

When I finished writing the previous blog I figured that I had about 15 more minutes before we would begin boarding the plane… I was about 2 hours off. They wrote that the plane had been delayed on the departure screen, but neglected to tell anybody in any way how long that delay would be. I was confused, to say the least, but everybody else seemed to be perfectly ok, and, being that a line was beginning to form, I hopped right in it, figuring that it wouldn’t be long until we left. After about 45 minutes of standing in that same place I began to doubt myself. I wanted to move, to go sit down, but the line behind me was further than I could see and there was no way that I was going to risk losing my position. So I stood there. And stood there some longer. I guessed that it was a combination of two things: Spain and RyanAir. Spain can be a very layed back country and RyanAir can be a terrible airline. So, when you combine the two, long waits with no notice may be quite common. We eventually did take off and I was pleasantly surprised to pass through customs in England in no more than 10 minutes. I got train tickets (the airport is about an hour outside of London) to go into the city and boarded the train with no problems. It was at this moment, feeling quite content with myself, that I realized I had forgot 2 magazines, a book and some traditional Spanish chocolates I had bought for my cousins. I have no idea where I left them – either the plane, the customs desk or the ticket desk – but regardless of the place, I knew that somebody else was going to get an early Christmas gift.

At about 12 that night I arrived at London Liverpool Street. From there I figured that I would simply take a metro that would miraculously drop me off at my hostel. Boy was I mistaken. Maybe I had been overconfident as I knew that I was traveling to an English speaking country, but all I had on me was the name of the hostel, “Astor Kensington”. I took a metro that had Kensington on the map, but unfortunately it went in the opposite direction and then, at “Alsgate” decided to call it a night. So now I found myself even further from where I wanted to be, in a metro that had closed for the night with almost no idea of where my hostel was. I asked a cab driver how much a ride into Kensington would cost and he told me 40 pounds if we were lucky. I decided to try to get there on my own. I wandered around for a bit and found a different metro station, read the map with a bit more care, and then, at around 1 am got on a train headed towards Kensington. Only now a new problem presented itself: there were three Kensingtons. High Street Kensington, West Kensington and South Kensington. I did a short little game of ennie-mennie-minie-moe and got off at South Kensington. From there I asked a cab driver to take me to the Marriot (it was where my cousins were staying and I figured the chances of him knowing of that were better than the hostel) and when we got there I asked him if he knew of the hostel because on google maps it was close by. We drove up and down the street a couple of times and, at precisely 2am I entered the front doors of Astor Kensington.

We would hope that the journey would stop here, and it kind of does, but you know those moments when all you want is a place to put your stuff and a bed to fall in? Well, that’s exactly how I was feeling. Only, to my utter disappointment, the floor of the hostel was covered with bags and clothes and all the beds looked like they had yet to be cleaned. I eventually decided on the top bunk of a bed that looked reasonably neat, threw all of my stuff up onto it with me and passed out. It was by no means easy (I had technically started at 9am that morning when I caught a bus to Santander), but I figure any story that ends with some sort of bed and sleep can be deemed a happy ending.

The next 3 days were exactly what I needed. Time with family, big meals, pools, hot tubs, movies, sight seeing, relaxing, long/hot showers, very little time in the hostel. I wouldn’t have wanted to spend Christmas in London any other way. Thank you Pierce family!

Spanish Adventures (19-23)

2009-12-23T15:31:00.003+01:00

I am currently in the Santander, Spain airport killing some time before my flight to London so I thought I’d start writing a little update on my adventure to this point. So far I have been to Toledo, Madrid and San Sebastian. Marco and I took the overnight bus to Madrid on Saturday night and then caught another bus that morning to Toledo where we spent most of the day. It was a pretty cool little city and, if you don’t like to see other tourists, the perfect time to go. First off, it was a Sunday – always a quiet day in Spain – and second off the temperature was having trouble getting above 1 degree Celsius, which is about 34 degrees Farenheight. The city has the same Muslim foundations as Sevilla, but what makes it so unique is that much of the Muslim constructions remain standing today. It is located on a hill and is enclosed by a “Muralla” in which everything of importance to the Islamic tradition can be found. The streets are narrow, steep and windy – and the drivers are crazy. I think that they rival off-road drivers in terms of spectacularness for the places where they manage to fit those vehicles. We spent the day wandering, getting lost, finding our way back to the cathedral (located in the middle of the city) and then getting lost some more. It wasn’t too big which allowed us to see just about everything in the time that we were given.

We returned to Madrid with no plan for the following night or, for that matter, the next 3 days. Our original idea was to go to take an overnight bus to Bilbao, but that bus would have had us arriving at 5:00 am – a little bit early given that we had no place to stay. We searched other destinations and eventually decided to take the 12:30 am bus to San Sebastian. Accordingly, we arrived at 6:30 am and began our search for a place to stay. We found a bar with internet and from there we booked a hostel for that night. We got there at about 8 in the morning and had to ring the doorbell on and off for about half an hour before somebody finally came to our service. The workers weren’t there, but we slept in the main room for a couple of hours – bed or no bed it felt amazing to lie down – before heading out into the city. And, as luck would have it, it just so happened to be the day of the biggest festival in San Sebastian. San Sebastian is located in the Bask country in the north of Spain and, as we quickly discovered, is a completely different culture when compared with that of Andalusia. In honor of the holiday (I hope) all of the woman wore dresses that reminded me of those worn by the Omish and the men wore little hats like the Scottish. San Sebastian is located right on the coast and receives a lot of moisture making it a very green area. The people combined with the scenery convinced me time and time again that we were in Ireland, Scotland or the 1800’s. The streets were jam-packed with people drinking sidra (a famous type of cider – which is very unsavory) and eating chorizo (which is also ate in sevilla, but is made differently here). From 11 that morning to 12 that night the setting didn’t change. People singing, dancing old dances and talking in their native tongue of Bask. This language, as far as anybody knows, has absolutely no similarities to any other in the world, in fact, nobody even knows where the Bask as a group of people derived from. I at first thought that there were similarities between this and Celtic, but I ran into an Irish person who told me that that was like comparing English to Chinese. We spent the day exploring the city, watching the festivities and doing the recommended sightseeing. We also walked what had to be 10 miles. We both loved San Sebastian as a city itself. The wide, clearly marked streets were a nice contrast to those narrow, curvy ones found in Sevilla and Toledo. It was all incredibly green (one color that Sevilla severely lacks) and the fact that it was located right on the ocean brought it all together- though maybe the summer would have been a better time for taking advantage of such water.

Marco left the next day (Tuesday) but I stayed and spent the majority of my time trying to rediscover the incredibly cheap sandwich shop that we had found the day before to no avail. I met some Australian mates (say in Australian accent or else that looks weird) and we went out to a few tapa, or “pincha”, bars. In San Sebastian they have this technique where they put the little tapas (be it little sandwiches, croquetas, pimientos, ect) on the bar in front of you. The plates are continually full (you aren’t, due to their size) and incredibly delicious looking. The idea is that you eat as many as you want and then tell the bar tender how many you had at the end and pay for it then. In terms of profit making the system is ingenious. A) You just can’t stop yourself B) they’re small enough that you can’t fill yourself up C) they are very good and D) they are ridiculously overpriced. We were in one bar for a grand total of 30 minutes and ended up with a bill of 37 euros between the 4 of us. We could have ate 37 one euro cheesburgers at mcdonalds. That’s almost 10 to each of us. But I guess that you have to experience that local flavor.

So I guess that phase one of the adventure is almost over – the Spain phase. Now its off to England for 4 days followed by Florence. Anybody know some helpful/essential Italian???

- Top left: Me in Toledo
- Top right: Toledo
- Bottom right: Me in San Sebastian
- Bottom left: Marco and I in San Sebastian at some famous (we couldn't figure out why) statues

Also this isn't quite how I would have chosen to arrange the photos, but this program is impossible to work with. And even more than impossible to get how you want it to look.

Bon Voyage!

2009-12-19T21:29:00.000+01:00

So I’m about to start my adventure! My friend Marco and I leave at 1 am tonight and take a bus headed for Madrid. From there we are going to visit Toledo, which is only about an hour from Madrid, and then we’re going to head up towards the north of Spain (what’s that saying? ‘it rains on the plains in the north of spain’ or something? Anybody know what I am referring to? Audrey Hepburn I believe…) for a few days. On the 23^rd I leave him and fly from Santander to London where I’m going to meet my cousins for Christmas. I stay there until the 27^th and then things gradually get a little bit less organized. From London I fly to Bologna, Italy and then I’m either going to go to Florence then Milan or Venice then Milan. From Milan I am planning on heading up to Zürich, Switzerland for New Years. I have a 10-day pass (which can be used over the course of 2 months) in Italy, Switzerland, Austria, France and Spain. The plan is to travel throughout those countries for about 3 weeks upon which I will return to Sevilla for my second quarter – I have to be here by January 20. I will do my best to keep everybody updated and post pictures from everywhere that I go! If anybody thinks I absolutely have to do something in any of those countries please tell me! Ok, here I go, hasta luego!

Essay Competition

2009-12-14T17:44:00.000+01:00

We had the option of writing an essay for our program about a particular experience we had here in Sevilla. The winner got 100 euros! (I am approximately 100 euros richer...) Here is what I wrote!

Starring blankly into his eyes, his face marked with the frustration of trying to explain a simple task to somebody who can hardly understand a word of his language, I tried to find the perfect speed at which to nod my head. Not too slow, that would convey confusion, but not too fast either, because then I would look crazy, and you don’t want your host family thinking that they were given the spaz kid on your first night in the house. No, just the right speed to show that, hey, don’t worry, I think I can figure out how to turn the air conditioner on. Regardless, when my host dad finally left the room I felt as though a hurricane had just pummeled my brain into oblivion, leaving me with less knowledge of both the Spanish language and of your common air conditioning unit. Trying not to feel frustrated, I reminded myself that being abroad wasn’t going to be easy. On the bright side, I thought, at least I have an air conditioner and, as I turned it on and went to sleep that night, I wondered if I would ever call this new bed, in this foreign country, my own.

It wasn’t long, however, before I woke up that night in what I first suspected to be a hot tub, but soon realized was a bed drenched with sweat. I turned to the air conditioning unit and changed the setting from medium to high and somehow, amidst that pool of water, fell back asleep. The next time I woke up it was if I had just finished running a marathon wearing a wet suit and a football helmet. Sweat was pouring down the sides of my face, my pillow was nothing short of drenched and water creatures were starting to grow on their newfound pond.

I will never forget the reaction of my host dad when he walked into my room that morning. The look on his face was a combination of shock and complete horror, like he had unexpectedly walked into a blazingly hot place. He looked at me, losing body water at what had to be record pace, went over to the air conditioning unit and burst out laughing. He called his wife in to have a look and I heard the first word I actually understood since arriving at my home stay – “sauna”, the same as in English. “Sauna!” they said, louder and louder between their uncontrollable spurts of laughter. And then it dawned on me. I hadn’t turned the air conditioner on at all that night, but the heater. I could have roasted marshmallows on it, or used it to stay warm in the middle of an Antarctic winter, or, as I so wisely chose, put it in a room that was already hovering around 38 C. I couldn’t help but join in. It was our first family experience together and, as I have since realized, would be an analogy for my time abroad.

We arrive here with the very basics. We know what language is spoken, but whether or not we understand that language is a completely different question. We know where we want to travel, but getting to the desired destination is an adventure in itself. We might know what kind of food is common or what sports are played, but that’s all we are equipped with; the bare minimums. It’s the details, like how to work a Spanish air conditioner, that you can only learn through actually being here. We start off as foreigners, but by the end we are all part of another culture, a different society, a new family. Its not always easy, there will be days when the simplest of tasks seem like the greatest of accomplishments, but through each experience we grow, we learn, we adapt and we become. Everybody came here with different goals, different objectives, but we all will leave with something in common, we all will return home with a little piece of our new home, with a little piece of Spain. The next time life makes me sweat, the next time I feel completely and utterly confused, I know that I will think back to that first night in Sevilla, remind myself that its all part of the journey, and have a little laugh.

Spain Delay

2009-11-14T18:26:00.000+01:00

So, as is apparent by the lack of recent updates, I haven't partaken in any blogging in a while mainly due to the fact that I haven't done any significant traveling the past 3 weeks. But then it dawned on me on one these beautiful Sevillan mornings, that that doesn't mean I don't have anything to report to my base of dedicated readers! Its like this author I really like; I started reading his books probably about 4 years ago and I read the first 3 books back to back to back. And then I had to wait about 5 months for the 4th one, so not to bad. But that 5th one! Its been three years and as far as I know hasn't even come out yet. I've forgotten the name of the author, the characters - in fact I couldn't even tell you the first thing about the series other than that I remember enjoying it to some degree or rather. Until it abruptly stopped. Worst of all I remember that the 4th book had an ending like this: ..... - as in, to be continued, or omg what is going to happen next, I can't wait to see! Anyways, in an attempt to avoid putting you guys in such a dire fate that I still find myself dwelling in today, I decided to present everybody with a nice little update.

First, school. Its in all honesty, been a bit too much like school. As in things like class. And work. And tests. I think that we all come here with the kind of impression that its going to be a semester or year long vacation with a couple little cosas to do on the side. But this past month its most definitely taken a turn to the escuela side of life. Since Dublin I've had two presentations and 5 midterms. Which leaves me with one more presentation, a couple of Spanish papers and finals to worry about this coming month. This has kind of hindered me from taken advantage of being in Europe, but the good thing is that it has reminded me that I'm in Spain. I'm in Sevilla. Those first couple of months I did so much traveling that I completely forgot to take advantage and appreciate all of the things that I have around here to do. So since then I've been aimlessly wandering the city, looking at whatever looks interesting, going to coffee shops and picking up newspapers in attempts to like a local (using the newspaper to hide my map of course - it is a little bit embarrassing, but I still haven't grown out of my getting lost in Sevilla phase), participating in Flamenco and yoga classes, and I just started a volunteer job that involves teaching kids english. The Flamenco class is offered through the school and its once a week. Unfortunately its a bit pricy so I've been sneaking in (there have only been three classes) but I think my cover is beginning to blow over being that I'm one of three guys, the only American - and the only one who has no prior Flamenco experience. I think I'll try to get in there for one more class then I'm planning on taking my winnings (or my "learnings") and leaving the dance floor before they take the dance floor from me. In addition to this fun little class, my gym offers yoga classes and the other week out of some persistent lower back pain, I decided to go check it out. I walked in to the room about 3 minutes late and was greeted by the glaring eyes of 20 old, spanish ladies. At Flamenco I might have been the only American, but here not only was I the single American, but also the only guy (other than the instructor) and the only person below about 60 years of age. The first thing the instructor told us to do was close our eyes, which was the last thing I personally wanted to hear because I had no idea how I was going to last a whole class doing something I had never done in a language that, well, isn't exactly my native tongue without being able to see what everybody else was doing. But I snuck some peaks here and there just so I wasn't completely lost, hustled out of the room when class was over, and made a vow to just stretch out my lower back in the privacy of my own room from here on out.

Lets see what else has happened recently.... hmmmmmmmm.... well there's a film festival here in Sevilla so I went to see a movie that was made in Denmark with spanish and english subtitles (its a great way of becoming familiar with a language) called "When Heaven Falls". And it was incredibly depressing so I don't want to go into many more details about it. I met the producers of a new Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz movie thats being filmed here in Sevilla and is scheduled to come out in theaters July 2, 2010. I offered my acting services free of charge and they said that they need to do a "running of the bulls" reenactment and might need some replacements. Unfortunately I didn't have any business cards to give them so it looks like my days of movie stardom are still somewhere off in the future.

O ya, I'm going to be traveling in Europe for about a month over Christmas so if anybody has some ideas or recommendations about places I should go I would love to hear them. I've always had a sort of fascination with Switzerland and Austria so I'm going to those places for sure and I would love to do some skiing if thats at all possible. And if anybody wants to tag along feel free! haha

Darn, I can't think of anything else right now. I feel like there was more but then I get writing about one thing and forget about the other and find myself here, stuck in this little writers block rut. Well, if I remember I will be sure to put them up sooner rather than later. Tomorrow my goal is to get some more pictures up here as well so we'll see if I follow through on that one. Ok, thats about it. Im going to go click the publish post button now, alright, here goes nothin....

Home of the Irish (Oct. 15-18)

2009-10-25T11:09:00.002+01:00

I don’t know if it was the fact that they spoke English or that we were just really, really uncharacteristically organized, but this seemed to be the trip with the least amount of confusion and, therefore, the one with the least amount of funny things to relay to the readers of this little blog. Soooo I’m going to adopt a new kind of strategy here and talk about a few of the places we went in Dublin and the corresponding lessons on history we were given in that funny little accent of theirs.

Dublin Castle

The groundwork’s for the famous Dublin Castle were constructed by the Viking’s in the 800’s, but the Dublin Castle as we know it wasn’t officially constructed until 1204, though a fire burned it down in 1686. The ammunition chamber?? of the castle caught on fire proceeding to explode, taking the rest of the castle down with it. The castle was reconstructed but never returned to its natural state. Today it is used to host foreign ambassadors and as a meeting place for Ireland's president. The tour was pretty entertaining. We learned that Margaret Thatcher stayed there in the 80’s but only at the insistence that they build a new bathroom for her (because she didn’t want to stay in the old kings bedroom). One of the rooms had painings of all the ‘great’ Irish politicians, but one of those paintings was about 2 feet lower and partly hidden behind a door. The guide said that this was the portrait of the last holder of American territory (unfortunately I forget his name, but probably "Mc" or "O" something or rather) and upon losing the colony he came back to Ireland where he took his anger out on the people, ruling with a heavy hand. Today he is, to say the least, not the most popular of Irish figures and the tour guide had some pretty strong feelings about it even being up on the wall, stating that maybe if the handle of the door slammed into his face every time then he would be ok with it. One of the most interesting parts of the castle was the tiny remains of a moat that used to run around it. In the 1300’s, with the Black Death sweeping the continent, it was decided to cut off the moat from the castle (before this point it had apparently run into the castle). It was though that water was the primary cause of the disease, so the taxpayers were granted custody on the inside while the non-taxpayers were left to rot on the outside. Well, it turns out that the cause of the disease was actually rats (and fleas were the vectors) and with the draining of the water the rats were trapped inside the castle. 60% of the population within the castle walls died within 2 years and, although the numbers don’t exist, those on the outside faired far better; the result: if you pay your taxes in Ireland, death will be your reward.

Chester Beatty Library

This library definitely wasn’t your common, everyday, "lets check out a book" library. There were two rooms, one dedicated to the beginnings of language and the other dedicated to the beginnings of the worlds most prominent religions (east and west) and each of the rooms contained some of the earliest, most important texts of those particular religions/languages. I thought that the “religion” room was amazing. It was divided into 6 sections, each focusing on the beginnings of their religion, and it was a great way of learning and seeing the relations that exist between them all. I was most interested in the eastern religions (such as Buddhism) and their appeal as a way of life. The higher being that they worship is within ourselves, it is our mental capacity, and through meditation one can rid the brain of all negative thoughts, freeing it to explore, to be truly happy and to help transmit that happiness, that positive energy, unto others. Islam, another religion that I want to learn more about, directly translates to mean, “submission” and that’s really what the whole religion is based on. Submitting to the will of god, to the command of god. Islam, Christianity and Judaism are essentially progressions of one another; Islam calls itself the most refined and flawless of the three because it is the newest. Although they see Christ as an incredibly inspired religious figure, he is not as important to their religion as Muhammad, the one and only true prophet.

Viking Museum

I have always had a kind of fascination/very limited knowledge of the Vikings, so I was pretty excited to stumble upon this little historical documentation. The word Viking comes from the Old Nors word “Vík”, which means bay, or inlet. The Vikings, renown for their sea faring abilities, first arrived in Ireland in the 700’s. They worshipped 3 gods, Odin and his sons Thor and Fey. It was said that if a Viking died a glorious death in battle he would go to an eternal party with Odin, but if the Viking died a calm and peaceful death he would forever remain in a cold, dark after place. Vikings rarely wore armor, but would dress in the way that they depicted the warrior god Thor – in bear fur. Before and during battle the Vikings were known for rilying themselves up as a way of inspiring fear in the opponent – the modern day word “bersurk” comes from this practice, derived from the “bear shirt” that the Vikings wore in battle. The Vikings, due to the superior design of their ships that allowed for faster travel and superior docking, were known to be excellent traders. When the slave trade came around so many people came from the Slavic states that it is though that the word “slave” is derived from the word “Slavic”.

While walking back from the museum, I happened to stumble on a couple of tents that were part of a Viking reenactment. These guys are Ireland's equivalent of left-over hippies. I'm pretty sure that they still live like this on an every day basis, or at least they were just very convincing. One guy was making jewelry and it was actually really fun to watch him, sitting there with his tools from the 800's; I would have bought a piece... but I didn't, I guess I don't really know why. They also had a "battle reenactment" that they tried to turn into a comedy show. Let's just say it didn't work out too well.

Kilmainham Gaol

The final place we went was one of Ireland's most famous prisons (now a museum) - something the equivalent of the San Franciscos' Alcazar. It was said that kids as young as 8 used to go to the jail to serve labor sentences for crimes as petty as stealing a bite of bread. At one point, during the potato famine, the government announced an initiative that anyone caught begging would be immediately sent to jail. Well, being that jail was one of the few places where food could actually be found, it was said that as many as 9000 people occupied a mere 128 cells.

Alright, thats about all of the information that I can remember regarding this little island! Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to make it out into the country side or to the Cliff's of Moher, but I guess that gives a reason to go back in the future. Cheeros mateys

Moroccan Me Crazay! (Oct. 9-12)

2009-10-15T01:22:00.003+02:00

(Rabat: by far the prettiest, coolest part of the city)

Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, New Zealand, England, Spain…. These places, though obviously different from Colorado, don’t constitute culture shock. If I thought that before, I changed my mind precisely 4 days ago. Morocco, a Muslim nation, is about 35 minutes via ferry from the Southern most tip of Spain – Gibraltar (a place with a wealth of history that my Dad could tell you much more about than I can). Despite this short distance, Morocco is as stark a contrast to Spain as you will find. You leave the beaches of Gibraltar (where it is common to see women but not their bathing suit tops – not that I ever look or anything, it’s just what people tell me…) and arrive in Morocco (in a city called Tanger) where it is almost a rarity to see the full face of a woman, and never any other skin aside from her hands. I mean you see this on TV all the time, but actually being there, right in the middle of it, is a completely different experience. In Spain, as you all know by now, the nights really don’t get going until 11 or 12 pm and alcohol is almost a way of life. In Morocco everybody is in bed, or at least in their house, by, at the latest, 9 pm and alcohol is forbidden according to Islamic law. The streets are cleared out, aside from the vast amounts of trash that litter the ground as though the use of trash cans is looked down upon, the house is quiet and everybody is in bed or headed in that direction (I guess that this shouldn’t be too big of a culture shock to me, being that it is what happens at my home – where 9 o’clock is pushing it - but for some reason it seemed to me a very odd concept). To sum things up, I guess that it is easiest to say that Spain is by far the most liberal country that I have ever been to and Morocco is by far the most conservative.

(above: ridin' some llamas!

right: the house, apparently a typical muslim house)

The first two nights we stayed in a home stay with a Moroccan family in the capital city of Rabat. This experience was one of the most revealing and mind opening of my life. Sure, there are the little things, like a literal whole in the ground that serves as a toilet, which is in the middle of the shower, which makes up just about all of the bathroom. There is the food – a big bowl of kuskus or chicken or spaghetti – that is placed in the center of the table from which everybody eats using their right hand only (its very bad manners to use the left). Lunch and dinner are also strictly for eating, not for socializing – the only conversation we engaged in focused on how to get the coke from one end of the table to the other. Then there is the house itself, which was actually very beautiful. From the outside it looks like nothing, but the moment you step in it opens up to a big courtyard type structure with four pillars shooting up towards the ceiling. From this room there are five other rooms that branch off: the kitchen, two living rooms (which have built in sofas lining each of the walls) and two bedrooms - our room was the only one with actual beds – the others just had the sofas that doubled as beds. (There was a second level to our house, which another family lived in.)

The thing that impressed me the most about this new culture, however, was how open everybody seems to be. We had many discussions with Moroccan students and each time they made a point of saying how they never judge people based on race, color or religion. Who knows how true this is actually is, but based on the actions of the people around us it seemed to be the case. We went to some small, rural cities where we had to be the first Americans that the people had seen in a long time, if ever, yet they treated us as if we were as normal as the calls for prayer that you hear five times a day (the first one is at 4 in the morning). They never stared, never seemed to be talking behind our backs, and if they spoke to us it was to welcome us to their country and ask how we liked the tea (which was delicious, and full of sugar!). Another thing that impressed me about the Moroccans was that, at the minimum, they know at least 2 languages fluently (Arabic and French) though the majority that we met knew either Arabic, French and English; Arabic, French and Spanish; or all of the above. In our host family the two brothers (whom were 26 and 32) spoke all 4 languages more or less, but the mother only spoke Arabic; either meaning that multilingualism seems to be a rather new concept or that it is something that more men learn than woman.

(old roman ruin: Chellah)

By far the most local, authentic experience we had was the hammam – a Muslim bath house. The hammam is comparable to a sauna in the United States; comparable in the sense that it makes you sweat, everything else is a little bit more strange. There are three rooms going from coldest to hottest and the idea is to sit in the hot room (something like 51 Celsius, which I would say the equivalent of in Farenheight but it just sounds too hot) for 15 minutes then move to the medium room where you can either chose to wash yourself or hire somebody else to do it. Three of my friends and I, thinking that it was probably one of those rare, once in a life time “opportunities” decided to hire somebody else to do it. Communicating this proved to be very difficult and eventually a worker arrived who was able to translate the following sentence to us in his broken English: “Who here wants the old man to rub them down?” I don’t know if anything has ever sounded more awkward in all my life, or actually was more awkward, but we went ahead and did it anyways. The old man was indeed old; he had at most 4 teeth, was wearing underwear and nothing else, was incredibly hairy, but could scrub the body like nobody’s business. He had us lie down and then took a coarse rag – comparable to sand paper – to our skin and went to work. By the time it was over I had rolls and rolls of dead skin pilled up at the edges of my limbs – on my hands, my ankles, my feet. I think, that with the loss of dead skin and sweat combined, I lost a minimum of 5 pounds that night, and I’ve definitely never felt so clean in all my life.

(Mausoleum of King Mohammad V: side note; not like by many, his son, the current king, is far more popular - helping the poor, a big problem in Morocco)

Another very interesting part of this weekend was a conversation we had with a couple of Moroccan Peace Corp volunteers. They have both been in Morocco for about a year and you could tell how excited they were to be talking in English to Americans in what probably was the first time in as long as they could remember. It sounds like it can be some lonely work at times, imagine landing in a completely foreign country such as Morocco, then driving for 2 days to about as remote a village as one will find where you will be spending the next two years of your life. It makes me reconsider how “hard” I think it is being in Sevilla, Spain for a year. I have a tremendous amount of respect for those guys. I’ve considered the Peace Corp before and though I don’t want to rule it out I don’t think that I could do what they’re doing, maybe a village in South America, but a middle of nowhere place in Morocco is just a little too “middle of nowhere” place for me.

On the third day we went to a one of these middle of nowhere towns and had lunch with a local family. It was like one of those places that you can find in South America where the chickens out number the dogs, which outnumber the cats, which outnumber the people. Lets just say that an afternoon there was sufficient for me. After that we drove to a village called Chefchaouen, which was by far my favorite place in Morocco and probably one of the most beautiful places I have been. It is way high up in the mountains and a river flows right through the town where you can find kids jumping off rocks, ladies doing laundry and people simply enjoying life. The town itself is a maze of narrow streets, barely wide enough to walk in, much less fit a car, and the buildings are all some shade or another of blue or white. It really was an incredible place and I would love, if the opportunity ever presents itself, to go back there someday. Soccer jerseys were also 6 euros there (or 60 duran) as compared to 60 euros in Spain, so lets just say I put my newfound purchasing power to some good use.

The one thing that Spain and Morocco both have in common: Neither have the DENVER BRONCOS!!! The best team that this universe has ever known. My goal here is to, by the time I leave, have this city, or at least my house, decorated in the Orange and Blue (or should I say brown and, like, a very odd yellow) that represents the everything that this world should be.

¡Aqui Estoy! (Oct. 2-4)

2009-10-05T23:06:00.003+02:00

¡Hola Todos!

Man, I got off to such a hot start there on those blog updates! I think I was somewhere along the lines of 5 for 5; 5 weeks, 5 blogs. Thats 100%! Rather than look at these past couple of weeks as losses, however, which would put a dent in that rather pretty percentage, I think I'm going to take them as though they were by weeks. And really its only been one by week. Or maybe one and a half. But anyways, here I am! And I have stories! The more time off the more stories generated! Jajajajaja

This past weekend I made plans to go to Granada. And this time I actually made it! (I don't know if I ever mentioned it in the Almuñeca blog, but I was under the impression that we were actually going to Granada then, which never exactly happened.) My friend Marco and I took the train there on Friday afternoon and came back Sunday morning. The train, if it were the same one I took to Madrid, would have taken about an hour, but being that they reserve those old fashioned, cargo looking trains that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid once plundered for the shorter excursions, the trip was about 3 and a half hours. Bus and car are about the same length of time though, and trains allow for reading and writing so I would chose them any day. We arrived in Granada at about 7 friday night and fortunately, or so I thought, I had written down the directions/bus numbers that we would take to our hostel. When I pulled them out and started walking towards the bus, however, mi amigo Marco looked at me as if I were crazy. I mean, who uses directions to get to a desired location in a city in which they have never been to? I guess I liked his spirit though so i put them in my pocket and we proceeded to walk. Not only did we not know where we were going, but we didn't even bother to look at street signs; I guess we just assumed that some force was guiding us or something. But, as we would find out, such a force did not exist. We walked in what we later discovered was the completely opposite direction for about 30 minutes, but it was a fun way of seeing the other part of the city and we were in no hurry. When we knew we were close we decided to use the directions and this is what they consisted of (the final part, at least): "Big wooden door on the right". Maybe if we were in New York or something such a description would have worked, but its a little bit less helpful when all the doors are relatively big, and most definitely wooden. We started off at the biggest of the wood doors, which turned out to be somebody's house, then we attempted to decipher which of the four wooden doors on the street was the most wooden, if that is at all possible - for one wood to be more wooden than a corresponding piece of wood. (Wooden/wood is looking like a very odd word now, after writing it so many times. Test it, after the 6th time it starts to look really funny.) Anyways, that attempt failed as well - it was some sort of meat factory or something - so we turned to the smallest and least wooden of the four doors and, obviously - I mean it probably should have occurred to us sooner, that was the hostel.

The next day we had tickets to the Alhambra - one of the seven man made wonders of the world, also, as we would soon find out, one of the seven most complicated and confusing things of the world. We had tickets to the 8:30 entrance (each ticket gives you half an hour to enter the Alhambra, so we had from 8:30 to 9:00) that I had printed off of the internet. When our turn came up, feeling relatively proud of ourselves for making it on time, we were turned away because we were supposed to have exchanged the internet ticket for one that they give at the front. Ok, a little bit frustrating, but not too big of a deal, I mean, how hard can exchanging tickets be? Well, I guess it depends on if your a distance runner or not, because it was like running a marathon. At a full out sprint. In sandals. Ducking and weaving through people the entire time. Which reminded me of football. Which I miss a lot. We had to run up one hill, only for them to tell us that we were at the ticket office for purchases, not internet exchanges, so we had to run back down the hill and up the one on the opposite side, were we discovered that, although this was the actual entrance, the exchange office was back down, then up and around behind where we were. So we ran again. By the time we got to that office it was 8:51. Fortunately, they took us to the front of the line to exchange our tickets and we somehow made it just as the second hand on my watch was about to force that big hand to change the hour. (A fancy way of saying it was almost 9:00).

The Alhambra was well worth the run. It was originally built by the Muslims and later conquered by the Christians, so it retains aspects of both religions. Although its technically a castle, its much different than one would imagine a castle to be. Each room is beautifully and uniquely decorated witch Islamic scripture covering the walls. It is a very open structure with many courtyards and outdoor walkways leading from one room to the next. In what I thought was the prettiest and most unique room it is said that a Christian leader hosted an extravagant dinner party in which he killed all his guests. Right before dessert none the less. Probably not quite what the guests had in mind when they received the invitation. There is a winter part to the Alhambra and a summer part, or "vacationing spot" in which there are gardens are everywhere - probably similar to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, though I have never been there. In my opinion what makes the Alhambra so beautiful, so majestic, is its location. Granada itself is impressive to take in. Its reminds me a little bit of Aspen, only its an actual city. Mountains rise up on all sides and then unexpectedly drop down into far reaching valleys which the highways shoot over, painting a sort of futuristic looking scene amidst an old, muslim founded community. The Alhambra looks over all of this and gives one an amazing view from all angles.

Wow, this has been an excessively long post. I guess that I felt as though I had to redeem myself a bit but I'm sure everybody is getting a little bit tired of reading this. Or maybe I'm just using that as an excuse due to the fact that I'm getting a little bit tired of typing, but to sum things up, we wrapped up our tour of Granada by visiting the Catedral of Granada and the Arabic community that is on a hill side close to the Alhambra.

I'm going to try to get back to this again this week to put up pictures and give a brief update on life at school. ¡Hasta luego!

Almuñeca (Sept. 19-20)

2009-09-22T00:00:00.001+02:00

So I have been in Spain for over a month now, but in many ways I feel like I still haven't gotten away from America. I'm sure the Internet has something to do with that, but I love being able to stay connected to everything and everyone that has been such a big part of my life for so long (Plus, life without Internet is like the even more modern day equivalent of Cast Away, i.e. you can be in the most beautiful, modern, civilized, populous part of the world, but without Internet, without that connection to your home, you still feel as isolated and alone as ever.) Rather, I think that this feeling of still being in America has more to do with always being around Americans. I was under the impression that from the moment we arrived here in Spain we would be with Spaniards. Granted, we see them all around us, but rare is the occasion in which we actually socialize with them (hopefully part of this will change when they start school on the 28th). Anyways, in an attempt to get even more away, I went to a little beach town called Almuñeca with a Spaniard I had met on my first night in Sevilla and two of his friends. They are crazy. Loco. I don't think I've ever been so confused or turned around in my entire life, but I loved it! Listening to them talk to each other was an experience in itself. I closed my eyes at one point during their conversation and literally thought that I was on another planet amongst 300 or so shouting Martians. I've always wanted thought it would be cool to be abducted by aliens! I'm sure it can't be much different than that experience lol. One of the amigos of my amigo Eduardo (or Principe Naranja as his friends call him because he is always wearing orange) owns a beautiful, very spanish apartment over looking the beach. (I was relieved upon pulling into the parking lot because I thought we would be sleeping in the car or something.... I literally understood nothing about what was going on lol).

We arrived at the apartment at 1:00 am (really 9:00 pm by their standards as I would soon find out) and sat out on the patio for a couple of hours. We went to bed around 3 am upon which the Spaniards all commented on how early it was, especially for a Friday night, but, obviously embarrassed with themselves, they went to sleep. (I, on the other hand, was ecstatic - almost to the point where I couldn't fall asleep - for this was the moment that I had been waiting for since 11 that night lol). The next day we got up at around 9:30 and went down to the beach. The water was cold but we rented a paddle boat and made our way into the open seas. The 3 spaniards and the american. Bound together by what would deem to be about an hour of solid pedaling and sufficient burning in the legs before we would make it back to shore.

That evening would prove to be another late one (or should I say early) as we got to bed around 6 am. The night consisted of tapa bar after tapa bar after tapa bar leading to, when it was all said and done, about 40 euros worth of food and drinks. I, unfortunately, had no say in what I wanted as my new amigos consistently brought new plates to me begging me try the food and then laughing as they saw my often not-to-pleasant reactions.

When it was all said and done the weekend passed by in the blink of an eye, or the sentence of a Spaniard, and I had heard more spanish than ever before in all my years of life combined - which is precisely what I came to Spain for. They want to do it again next weekend, but I need at least another month of recuperation and, apparently, more adjustment to the Spanish lifestyle. I need to catch up on sleep now! And how about them Broncos! All the way baby!

Mi casa, mi cuarto, mi habitación

2009-09-21T23:17:00.000+02:00

(El Baño... I still haven't figured out what the toilet type structure between the sink and the actual toilet is used for. One of the many mysteries of this foreign country)

(my room, I know I should have cleaned it a little bit more before I took these pictures, but for some reason I have the hardest time cleaning this room so I decided to show it in its natural state)

(The House itself: (Alonso Cano, Casa 12)

La Universidad: UPO

2009-09-15T23:02:00.014+02:00

(First impression of my new University.... ¿¡Dónde está el césped?!)

School..... Escuela.... It is here. Ha empezado. The language might be different, but those two words, school and escuela, they don't differ in any other way. For some people it is those overwhelming thoughts of the long hours of work that lie ahead, the end of the fun, worry free days of summer that they have grown so accustomed to. For me, it is the dreaded opening week. See, I seem to have this uncanny nack for always finding myself with a class schedule that represents as stark a contrast as you will find to those classes that I thought I had signed up for. Something as different as, say, Santa Clara University to my new Pablo De Olavide University (which we will get to later). This makes those first 4 days of school a stress filled, lets take as many classes as I can because the world is going to end (and obviously thats what I would want to do if the world were going to end) week. And this one proved no different. The first three days of school I sat in on about every class offered and some more than once. I was consistently running from one building to another and I don't think I've ever walked into so many doors in such a short period of time in my entire life (as I always seemed to be looking down at a map of the school when a building suddenly sprung up before me). Aaaanyways, I'm good now. I just called my university to make sure all my classes fulfill requirements there and, gracias a dios, they do. I also had my school send me an email saying that same thing just in case they try to hold onto me for another quarter when I return by saying that these classes actually don't count - which, I've heard, has happened before.

I am enrolled in 5 classes at Pablo de Olavide Universidad: Spanish (por supuesto), The European Union, International Marketing, History/Religion of Spain and The European Economy. It seems like a pretty solid course load and the final two classes are taught in Spanish so either I will learn a lot more Spanish as well as history/economy, or nothing at all. When we first saw the campus I'm pretty sure that we all had the same thought: "we are going to jail... or at least to a mental institute... I knew that this whole Spain thing was too good to be true".

(Left: The "watchtower"

Right: The hallways - reminds me of those California highschools I used to see in the movies/disney channel)

It was made even funnier that on the first day of class two of my teachers made a point of reassuring us that we are not in jail, we did not do anything wrong in coming to Spain, and that we will be allowed to go home at the end of everyday. The school consists of an outdoor hallway running for the length of about 3 football fields with buildings springing off to the sides every now and then. The buildings are all yellow and orange with bars on the windows, but the classrooms themselves are just like any classroom you would see at a university back in the states. The thing that I miss most about Santa Clara as compared to this school is the grass. In Santa Clara everything feels so inviting. The freshly cut grass calls your name - whether it is for sports, a nap or just some good, clear thinking. The flowers create an aura of warmth and acceptance and the beautiful architecture makes you want to pull out your camera everywhere you go. Not to say that you don't feel a desire to take some pictures at my new university, its just for the complete opposite reasons; like, hey, look where I go to school, its worse than yours haha not really though; its just going to take some getting used to but I know that I'll love it, im not worried. (I don't have pictures right now, but I'm planning on putting some up in the next couple of days so be sure to check back!)

(This is definitely the kind of picture that you would find in a brochure... a solid use of the only green grass found on campus... though it does look more along the lines of an all-girls boarding school with those pink buildings..)

Over the weekend about 30 of us went to the beach town Huelva. There isn't a whole lot to report from there other than we found a football and got in a good three hours of playing time. Man did I ever need that. Ok time for some tarea! I hope that the United States is still united and very states-like. I read that Obama's latest health care speech was his best since president but I wasn't able to see it. Also everybody from Spain enjoys bragging about how there economy is worse than ours.

Madrid

2009-09-08T11:42:00.006+02:00

(One of the first things we saw in Madrid... though we never figured out what the name/purpose of that building...)

¡Caramba! It is absolutely amazing to me that I have already been in Spain for 3 weeks. I feel like I should be fluent in Spanish! I'm not, but the past two weeks sure have bumped me up a couple of notches. On the Friday following our final exam I took a train to Madrid to meet up with my girlfriend and one of her friends. It wasn't until I was on the train (I guess because I had been so focused on the final) that I realized three things: 1) LoLo doesn't have a cellphone 2) I don't know the name of her hotel - I had somehow misplaced that information in route to the train - and 3) Madrid is the biggest city in Spain. These thoughts, combined with the anxiousness that I was already feeling, obviously caused me a bit of worry; but "Marley and Me" was playing on the tv in spanish and that substantially distracted me for a couple of hours. Just as the train was nearing its approach I received the phone call that I had been resting all of my hopes upon - LoLo was able to use the hotel phone and from there we took advantage of Madrid's highly effective metro system to meet up with each other relatively painlessly. We walked around the city a bit - me the experienced foreigner as they were still overcome by the jet lag a day and a half of traveling can give (not to mention the 8 hour time difference).

The next day we went to the Palacio Real - the official residence of the royal family of Spain. It really instils a new idea of what "big house" means. With 3000 rooms, a dining table for 180 people and an armory the size of a football field, the massive structure structure makes those so called mansions in Aspen look like little ant hills.

(Above: In front of the Palacio Real. The Statue is a representation of King Felipe IV)

We toured the Palacio with a handy little microphone type thing as our guide - you press the numbers corresponding to the room you are in and then the microphone gives you the history of that particular room. Unfortunately, I had misread the order of the numbers and therefore was intently listening to the descriptions of the room completely opposite of where I was. Everything looked too similar for me to distinguish via the audio description however, and, acting as the tour guide, I relayed all of the information to LoLo and Kandace under the impression that it was factual. We would oo and ahh and it wasn't until one of them took over audio duties that we found out that we should go ahead and forget everything we had just "learned". Needless to say, I was no longer allowed to be the official tour guide and we had to go back to number 1 on the map. (Towards the end of the tour, just to put the icing on the cake regarding my relationship with that microphone, I was swinging it around on the cord when it went flying off, hit the ground and ceased functioning all together).

(Plaza de Mayor - one of the most famous plazas in Madrid, famous for its tapa bars and street performers)

That evening we waited in a line with the hope of receiving discount tickets to a ballet that night. Maybe the fact that we were the last ones in the line, the fact that we were the only Americans or the fact that it seemed as though we were being laughed at for an abnormally long amount of time should have warned us, but by the time we got up to the front they were fresh out of tickets. So much for the hour and a half wait I guess...

(Left: A picture of some of the food served at tapa bars in Spain, though this was the nicest one I have been too. Upon pushing and shoving your way to the bar to order they heat up the food and then bring it to you.)

The following morning, Sunday, we went to the Prado - one of the three biggest art museums in the world. There we saw drawings by Vazquez (the most famous Spanish artist - born in Sevilla, my new hometown - thats my claim to fame) Goya and about 400 other artists. It was entertaining for about 15 minutes, but I did my best to feign interest for the remaining hour and a half lol. Eventually they all start to look the same to me. Its not that I'm not interested in the paintings or the history behind them, its just that I know absolutely nothing about them. If anybody has any recommendations on books I should read regarding the incredibly broad topic of "History" (particularly that of the Romans, Greeks or Christianity) I would love to hear some suggestions.

(Somewhat random picture of a church outside of the Prado... seems as though scooters are just catching on in Spain... they've been out of style for about 10 years now in the U.S.)

I don't know how I'm supposed to end a blog. If it were an email I would say "I hope Colorado isn't too cold yet!", or, "I look forward to reading any responses!", or something along those lines, but I feel like blogs don't require little sign off messages like that. Rather, I think that they just kind of end. Like I talk for a while, write everything that is on my mind, and then just kind of dwindle off. "Until next time." Maybe thats a good one. I really don't know. If anyone has any words of advice regarding my new predicament that would be greatly appreciated. Also if anybody knows how I can watch American football in Spain I will grant them with the grandest of all honors - dedicating this blog to them..... Adios! (I had to say it haha)

Update Numero Dos

2009-09-05T16:03:00.004+02:00

Wow, if last week was spent getting to now the basics of the city, this one was all about immersing ourselves in the language and in the culture. When we weren’t at our home speaking with our families, we were in class for 3-4 hours a day studying\learning\and taking tests. We were also thrown into the city a couple of times on so called scavenger hunts where the aim was to find Sevilla students, talk to them about their school, and try to understand at least a word or two here and there to write our reports off of. Learning Spanish where the language is actually spoken by everybody around you is completely different from Spanish in the United States: you go to class for a couple of hours every week, but the second you leave you don’t think about the new grammar or vocabulary until you have the class again or until a test somehow creeps up on you that you requires a bit of studying. Here, however, you can take what you learned in class and immediately put it into action. At home, in the streets, wherever. It gives a new incentive to concentrate and really try to learn the material. More than just getting a good grade, you want to improve for the sake of your life outside of the classroom. Sometimes, when I’m walking through the city by myself, I do my best to look like a native Sevillan. The other day I was sitting down eating a sandwich, or a bocadillo, and a couple of tourists asked me in English where they were. I looked at them in confusion, replied that I only speak Spanish and they were then forced to use body language to ask the question. I explained to them in Spanish where they were, but when they asked me how to get to a point on the complete opposite side of the city I was forced to give up my cover and revert to English. The look on their faces was pretty funny when i suddenly became fluent in English, but I think I had them going for a couple minutes!

Adapting to the Spanish lifestyle has been quite the adjustment. At home I was an early bird - one who ate ALOT of worms for breakfast - active all day long, small lunch, and ready to go to bed by 11 at the latest. The best way to describe the Spanish and their daily routines is to take my old routine and then do the exact opposite. If I didn’t have class in the morning, like today, things really wouldn’t ever get going until around 12; they have incredibly small breakfasts (sometimes just a glass of milk and tiny muffin), absolutely massive lunches, siesta time after lunch (which can last anywhere from 2-4 hours; when i wander the streets in this time I get the feeling that I am the only person left in the world, which is pretty weird to have in such a big city), dinner at 10 or 11 and bed at, on most nights, 1 or 2. When we go out at night I’ve discovered that the bestroutine for me is go to bed at the same time i would at home, sleep for 4 hours, then wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning and get my evening started.

Earlier this week we went on a little field trip to the Catedral. Its a gothic cathedral (the 3rd largest of its kind, when it was first constructed it was the first largest) built upon Muslim foundations – the Muslims had a presence there until they were forced out of the country in 1248). This gives it a very unique look in which the courtyard and the outside design are Muslim, but the cathedral itself is Christian. The king who had it built loved the original Muslim construction so much that he ordered the church to be built upon and within the original Muslim design as opposed to tearing the whole thing down and starting over. Walking around the church from the outside takes a good 10-15 minutes to get back to your starting point. The inside is absolutely massive, the walls just shoot skyward – very fitting as it resembles the streets of Sevilla.

(Looking down on the Catedral from the Giralda)

When it was first built it was the tallest standing building in the world. It also claims to be the burial place of Christopher Columbus, though there is a fair amount of controversy regarding this claim - they won’t know for sure until 2041 when a DNA test with Christopher’s brother (who is also buried at the catedral) and the “other” Christopher Columbus (who, I believe, is in the Dominican Republic) is completed. My favorite part of the church is the 36 story tower (Giralda) from which you can see all of Sevilla.

(Man, did those pools ever look enticing)

Anyways if you ever get tired of American politics and talk about Heath Care then i hate to inform you that espana is not the place to come to escape it. They love talking about it, or at least my family/their friends, and about all of the things that we do wrong and they do better.

Update Numero Uno

2009-09-05T16:01:00.005+02:00

I am writing this email out of my room at my home stay-in Sevilla. We have Internet, but unfortunately an Ethernet needs to be connected to a router and we only have one of those, so the whole family takes turns using it. Right now it is siesta time, so with everyone else asleep I decided to take my turn. The house I’m in is actually pretty nice. It has two stories and a roof that we can sit on as well. I’m located on the second story across from my host brother and – the padres live below us. Its hard to believe that I’ve already been here for 6 days! At times it like I just got here, but then at other times it feels as though I’ve been here for 4 months already. Sevilla is a beautiful city full of narrow, winding streets where cars somehow manage to get up to 60 km/hr and people are constantly avoiding collisions with vendors, motorcylcists and other walkers. It is definitely no place to walk around reading a book (or map for that matter) as you could actually be risking your life and, not to mention, the views and architecture are too unique to pass up. The most famous of the buildings in Sevilla is the Gothic Cathedral. It is absolutely massive and is located very near to the center of the city. I haven’t had a chance to go in it yet, but we are taking a field trip there tomorrow. Over the weekend our group took a little trip to Italica – an ancient Roman city overlooking Sevilla. The amphitheater is still standing and gives one a very good idea of how it must have been to be a spectator at one of the events. There is a large hole in the middle that the Romans would fill with water and then stage a sea battle – only with much smaller ships. When this was not in use they would cover it with wood and sand – much like hockey rinks can change into basketball courts in a matter of hours. Many of the homes retain their walls and tiles and their bathing places look like they could be used today if only there were water in them – and we were all wishing that there was with the average temperature here above 100 degrees.

Today we started something known as the “Intensive Language Program”. It consists o

f two weeks of 3-4 hour classes in which we are just drilled with Spanish grammer/vocabulary/norms and customs. I was placed in the

Advanced section so most of what I will be learning should be new to me. Combine this with the fact that my family speaks absolutely no English and learning Spanis

h should become a bit easier – in part because it is now a necessity, it counts for more than just a grade in a class. I definitely feel as though I have improved since I have arrived here. Many of the words and phrases you just pick up on without even trying because they are used so regularly. I don’t understand a lot of what my family talks about (on top of speaking incredibly fast they have a very strong Spanish accent), but I do my best to make a comment every now andthen… To get into downtown Sevilla and the CIEE study center all I have to do is walk a couple of blocks to a brand new metro, stay on that for 5 or so minutes and then walk another 10 minutes into the center of the city. One of my favorite parts of this new experience is exploring and becoming familiar with the city. At first it seems impossible, but today I went in without a map for the first time and although it added about 20 minutes to my journey I eventually found my destination. It’s definitely not the worst of cities to get lost in because you want to see as much as possible anyways.

Last night before I went to sleep my host dad came in and showed me how to turn the air conditioner down because the night before I apparently had it up a little bit loud. I understood about half of what he was showing me/doing, but when I went to bed I did something wrong because on a number of occasions throughout the night I woke up perspiring, soaking and with my pillow drenched in sweat. In the morning my dad came in and looked at the unit and bursted out laughing. I looked at him in confusion because he kept repeating “Sauna, sauna, sauna!” and then it dawned on me that instead of turning on the air conditioning last night I had turned on the heater – adding to the 90 degrees temperature! I don’t know how I survive

d, much less how I was able to get any sleep, but one thing I have learned so far is that, with a language barrier like this, you have to experience a lot of these little mishaps and such for yourself before you actually understand what to do.

P.S.One of the smaller differences that I have noticed over here is that none of the bathrooms (even the public, single ones) have locks or paper towels - the second of whi

ch is probably much better for the environment...

The start of the blog....

2009-09-01T11:17:00.000+02:00

Okay so I finally got around to creating this thing and I'm thinking that it was probably a good use of my time. Whenever I have anything that I feel needs to be said all I have to do is get on here, type a couple of words and just like that, boom! The thing that I felt had to be said is out in the open for all to see! I will also be able to update much more frequently than the weekly email I have been sending out. The two bottom posts are the first two emails I sent to everybody (with a couple of pictures) and every new post will appear at the top of the page. Ok I hope that you all enjoy it!