London to Florence 27/28

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)

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)

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!

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

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

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)

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