I was not particularly excited for this trip because we had very little time to discuss it in class (to get excited about the sites) and the last trip to Granada and Cordoba was jam-packed and pretty stressful as a result. But, the mountains (Picos de Europa) and the sea in a quiet, tourist-free town have a magical, comforting power. We were not expecting to be so close to the water nor for the weather to be as nice as it was. Though the place we stayed at reminded me of the musty cabins of my wilderness-experiences at summer camps and the town (Ribadesella) didn’t have a lot to “do” in it, we all loved it. What a break from the hustle-and-bustle of Madrid or even our life as college students in the US. I thought the people were friendlier and the Northerners are a bit easier to understand. According to our teacher, the place has changed a lot over the past few years because the Prince is from a nearby area and likes to visit a lot, bringing in more money and I am sure more tourists will find it and fall in love with, as one British tourist site describes it, ‘unspoilt‘ Spain.

Asturias is known for its milk products and cider, but not your ordinary, Halloween, donut-dunking cider from the orchard. This cider is slightly fermented and in order to get the best (and only palatable) taste is to add air to the drink the instant before your gulp it down–and ‘instant’ and ‘gulp’ are not exaggerations. In the sidería we visited Friday for lunch we were greatly entertained by the waiters lifting the glass bottle of cider way above their heads and letting the cider pour out and down to a glass waiting in the other hand below their waist. Then, you must drink almost the entire glass in one go or you will end up making funny faces like my friends who tried to smell it and swirl it before taking sips of what had become a bitter, flat drink. The final, would-be back wash sip is always thrown away, literally over the side of the table. As you can imagine, both parts make quite a mess so the problem is partially solved by placing wooden buckets or barrels at every table to toss the last sip and for the waiters to use while pouring before they flick their wrist to allow the cup to be filled. And for those who don’t want to wait for the waiter to come over every time they get thirst or don’t know how to do it on their own without making a fool out of themselves by spilling all over the place, there are also these little contraptions that you can stick on top of the bottle to serve it. In the US, a restaurant could import the cider and make a business just out of serving it.

On Saturday we staved-off some bad weather and visited some prehistoric caves with some of the best-preserved wall-paintings and did a 4hr, 14km canoe trip similar to the huge event every August that draws in thousands of people from around the world. The river was calm with small patches of “rapids” here and there so we had to work relatively hard. Thank goodness the company had wet suits and water shoes for us or we would have been miserable in our blue jeans and tennis shoes. Lunch on a bed of rocks was accompanied by some wild horses hoping we’d leave them some sort of snacks, I think. We finished off the day by climbing up a hill to watch the sunset over the sea.

If that doesn’t sound picturesque enough for you, I don’t know what will. I think it’d be the perfect place to retire, if only I was of age…

They say that a picture is worth more than a thousand words and after all the time I spend taking, organizing, caption-ing, and editing pictures I most certainly hope that’s the case. After 9 days in Italy for Spring Break and some 400 pictures later, here I am. I did some serious traveling in Italy, starting in Rome and the Vatican for a few days; then off to Florence to meet the girl I would be spending the next week with because she offered up her place in Bologna. From Bologna I was able to visit small towns (Ravenna, Ferrara) and tourist towns (Verona, Venice) by train for tickets averaging about 12 euros and one hour per direction.

I had no plans before I left Madrid on Thursday—no cities I had to see or even a map. I played everything by ear and visited every place without many expectations so it was all the more enjoyable and exciting. Of course, I “missed out” on some things because I didn’t research the open-and-closing hours ahead of time or read the books with all the “hidden” (and sometimes obvious) things to do in the city, but I really enjoyed simply exploring and walking around all these places. I didn’t ever have to feel bad about walking too quickly or not spending enough time somewhere because I was by myself during the day, going wherever my instincts took me.

I literally picked cities off the list on the screen for train tickets and bought a map once I arrived; so un-organized and free-spirited that you might not even have recognized me. The trains ran frequently and exactly on time, and with great scenery and their popularity among the Italians (hence good people watching), they were an excellent mode of transportation and way to see the country.

To keep from getting too lost, I often would pretend I was a car and follow the main roads until I got to a landmark on my map, using the street signs as my guide. I also learned to not be afraid of asking for help, be it directions or confirming the train you are waiting for and even getting on—only, remember to do this before the train pulls out of the station…

The gloomy rain and clouds complemented by cool temperatures from Tuesday through my return back to Madrid on Saturday definitely dampened my spirits and there was always a warm bed with a rented DVD from the shop around the corner tempting me to stay inside—especially because there was this neat, automatic system of checking out a DVD whereby you search for the title in the database and it spits out the disk like an ATM would distribute cash. Between the layers of clothes and staying in constant motion, it didn’t end up being too bad. Thank goodness there were no big storms, but I imagine I would have seen more museums if that were the case. (In fact, I really didn’t go in any museums. I wanted to see how all the cities lived and experience their atmospheres.) Plus, there were always signs in the storefront windows advertising air conditioning and gelato (which I never ate because of the weather) as a reminder that I could have been visiting during the tourist-crammed, sweaty summer that nearly every town was preparing for with restoration efforts blocking my experiences.

Every town in Italy has gorgeous, ancient, and huge churches/basilicas/cathedrals. I am still not sure quite what the difference is between all the terms. I must have visited at least 50 such buildings during my time there and, yes, they do all start to blend together in my head despite all the unique attributes each claims. I’ve seen so many that I am getting to the point where I feel like I am not appreciating them as much as I should. They are so beautiful, but you really can only absorb so much beauty over such a short time period before it all plateaus to a flat climax. I’ve seen so many stunning paintings, statues, chapels, organs, mosaics, and other decadent religious paraphernalia that I just can’t compare them anymore. People will probably gasp or rollover in their graves when I say this, but I just can’t tell the difference between one beautiful paining in, say, the small-town cathedral and the Sistine Chapel. Am I an ignorant fool for not being able to distinguish it all? It’s all just beautiful. Period.

Right alongside the religious buildings the next most common things in Italian cities are boutiques. Italy is King of fashion. Men, women, children, grandparents—they all dress fashionably, and proudly so. From the calf-high leather boots and metallic tennis shoes to sunglasses, perfumes, scarves, and not to mention handbags, they really care about what they’re wearing.. The only exception might be the rebellious teens with the destroyed jeans and mohawks. The Italian and, I’ve noticed, overall European attention to detail and striving to be an expert at your specialty is such a contrast from the mass-production lifestyle in which we are immersed in the US. But, on the other hand, there are a fair amount of knock-off venders and street markets run mostly by immigrants (Bangladeshi or African are the most common) to compensate for this extravagance.

Considering heavy meals of pasta, cheese, bread, and sausages are my American conception of Italian food, I was kind of worried about what I was going to find to eat. Psh, fear not. The food was cheaper, more varied and available, and better tasting than Spain. I was ecstatic to find baby carrots and very low prices on produce; it was hard to pass by and only once did I do the stupid thing of buying heavy food from the store when I had a long ways home. Good pizza, paninis, and rolled-up sandwiches—Italian fast food—were everywhere and for less then 3 euros. It wasn’t hard to find a place with plates of pasta (fresh, if you were lucky) for 5 euros and the concept of a salad or plate with lots of veggies for a meal exists in Italy, unlike Spain. But, I guess when you add-on the “service charge” or “silverware” price of 2 or 3 euros per person in restaurants as is set by the location, things about even out. Mind you, this “tip” is much more than the American 10-15% for whatever service you happen to get. You definitely have to read the fine print in European restaurants, as some will charge for bread that they put on your table and almost always for water.

One of my favorite things in Italy was something called “apertivos,” whereby a restaurant or bar will offer an all-you-want buffet of foods (olives, cheese, chips, salads, sausages, bread, rice, pasta) with the purchase of a drink (wine, beer, cocktail) and all for 5 to 7 euros. Any drink from their pretty extensive list or maybe you’d suffer through an Italian wine with as many plates full of food until they decide to stop bringing out more. What a deal. Maybe people get dinner afterwards, but I would see no reason to do so and we usually didn’t.

Since getting used to being a meanie and completely ignoring or looking through people on the streets, I did not notice the stares of the Italian men that bothered my friend so much. As soon as she pointed it out a couple of times, it was really easy to be aware of it. They are so obvious about it, it’s hard to believe. The face will pass and then out of the corner of your eye you will see the face again, instead of the back of their head. I have no idea what is going through their minds, but they most certainly have perfected the art of stare. Once I lingered and subtly turned the corner of my lips for a split-second on a man’s face (because my brain was trying to register that he looked like this actor in the movie we were watching) and he walked my friend off the sidewalk because he stopped looking where he was going. You might think it is a complement and I am sure some people would appreciate it, but I think it’s a bit weird; I know I’m not that drop-dead gorgeous to deserve such attention. This talent for staring didn’t stop, either, with the men as I watched the women sitting across from me on the train openly eavesdrop on this group of teens talking in the pod across the aisle from us like she was watching television or something. Oh, the cultural differences.

My overall impression of Italy was excellent, though I was glad to return to the warm sun in Madrid and not be running around so much. With my Spanish background I could actually understand a lot of Italian, but don’t ask me to talk. I’ve heard that if you speak Spanish with an Italian accent and intonation, you might be able to get by but the one time I did that the woman just talked back at me in Spanish and assumed I didn’t even know English. I always felt safe walking around, even in the graffiti strewn streets that are unfortunately all over.

I took over 350 pictures, which you can get to by clicking on the names of the cities in the post or visiting all my albums. There are lots of juicy details there and you can always get a nice summary from my where I’ve traveled page.

(Just as a comment on my on post, it’s no wonder I am so late to write anything because I have so much to say that I know it is going to take me a long time to write it all. Word count without this comment: 1599. Which is better, a picture or 1000 1599 words?)

Sorry for the uninteresting post, but this is the best I can do for this post at this point, as I have to start studying for my last (5th) midterm tomorrow. Then it’s off to *gasp* Italia for Spring Break for a whole 9 days. Roma, Bolgona, Milano, Florence, Venice…here I come!

Sometimes I take walks just to look at signs to see if I understand them and to look at the way phrases are structured (because it’s not always a direct translation from English to Spanish for it to make complete sense).  I like to see if I can get the gist of a conversation from only catching a few words as I walk past an elderly couple or group of friends.  The same goes for cellphone conversations on the street or in stores.  They’re all little games I play with myself to test my language skills and I do it more for something to be proud of than to be nosy.  How much can I understand a Spaniard speaking Spanish normally and without having to slow their speech so a non-native can understand? 

I am hoping that words and phrases I pick up in this inconspicuous manner will infiltrate into my brain and somehow make me smarter; perhaps even help me explain myself the next time I find myself waiting confusedly outside a gorgeous, must-see basilica with my big-old camera in hands when a funeral parade begins.  (So much for trying to blend into the crowd and minding my own business.)

I have to post this article from Thursday’s New York Times.  It’s right-on, down to the intimidating introductory classes and social drive to be active (or not) in web-communities.  I didn’t realize how popular e-zines or designing graphics were for girls–especially teens–but it makes sense.

Historically, girls and women have been expected to be social, communal and skilled in decorative arts.  “This would be called the feminization of the Internet,”[Pat Gill, the interim director for the Institute for Communications Research and an associate professor of gender and women’s studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign] said. Boys, she added, are generally taught “to engage in ways that aren’t confessional, that aren’t emotional.”

I am all about people using technology in their daily lives, and thrilled to hear that it’s accessible and engaging to people even younger than me.

Amidst the cold (well, the 20s in comparison to Madrid’s balmy 40s-50s) and thoughts of Amelie and Ratatouille, I spent a long weekend exploring Paris with a class at SLU that was open for other students to join them. We were a small group of 5 students (2 actually in the class) and a professor that I really liked (and only partly because he was recently diagnosed with type 1 diabetes).

Some of the themes were food (crepes, Orangina, open-air markets on side streets, and even a well-established international scene with many Greek and Japanese restaurants), lights (mostly on buildings at night making for some awesome pictures), city planning (lots of open spaces and wide streets, which is especially visible from the top of the Eiffel Tower), bookstores (multiple on every corner, but maybe more salient because I was traveling with a literature class), water and bridges (the Seine River runs through the city inspiring interesting architecture and landscapes, the marsh contrasting with the arid land in Madrid and Spain), and art, art, and more art (There’s more art than places to exhibit it –galleries, museums, on the street…They were at least smart enough to devise a system to keep the works organized in the national museums such the the Louvre has the oldest pieces up to the 1890s, the Orsay has the impressionists and pieces from the 1890s to 1914 or so, and then the Pompidou has everything after 1914.).

I was on my feet from my early morning wandering (starting at 10am is for the weak!) to tours of assorted neighborhoods and museums (check out my itinerary) for about 12 hours a day Thursday, Friday, and Saturday–counting food breaks for fabulous crepes, salads, salmon, and as much soup as I could get my spoon on to fight the cold. Thank goodness for my running leggings and under armor because blue jeans with two sweaters and a sweatshirt underneath a jacket and scarf would not have been enough for me.

Once again, luck was on our side as we had a great hotel location (very nearby the Notre-Dame Cathedral, the Sorbonne French university, Luxembourg Gardens, the Pantheon, and the Latin Quarter), missed all the long lines with our group guided-tours of the museums and managed to catch all forms of public transportation before our fingers and toes fell off. Though we were definitely paying quite a bit more for all this “luck,” everything went smoothly throughout our super-saturated trip. As a means of contrast, my friend was also in Paris this weekend and her hostal located 20 minutes outside of the city on public transportation was too new to have hot water and waited in line at the Louvre and Eiffel Tower for a few hours.

Like my first days in Madrid, I was frustrated because I couldn’t communicate with the locals despite my yearning to do so–except it’s obviously a bit more extreme since I have never studied French. I wanted to ask the market-men where are you from?, what’s the best in season?, or even the stupidest question of how much? My stark independence and rabid curiosity were forced to be constrained. The Professor interacted with the locals and served the vital role in translating menus, so I didn’t suffer too badly nor find even one instance of the rude French stereotype. The only stereotype I got a whiff of was smelly French people; I kept thinking it was me and found myself checking my breath or recalling if I put on deodorant that morning.

I came to realize, though, that no matter how much I may want to be a part of another culture–be it French, Spanish–I will always be an observer, never a member. I can’t look the part or speak with the native’s flair or even think and act instinctively in any of this rich cultures I have been visiting. No amount of studying, immersion, hair dye, or plastic surgery will ever do the trick. Part of me is saddened by this illusiveness, but it also makes each place and culture all the more beautiful and exotic because I know that it will never be and must remain at the level of a Platonic love affair.

Lots of excellent pictures and you can get a better sense of the chronology and reasoning of things by reading the captions like a story.

Today marks one-month in Spain. My does time fly! I’ve certainly learned a lot and experienced some beautiful moments, but there is still more to come! Some of it has been planned (and I’m not going to spoil the excitement of it by telling you about it now), but most of it is just the daily encounters and adventures of living abroad. So keep reading to find out more and, as always, I love all the comments and emails!

A few days ago I was in a small office supplies store looking for a gift for my host sister’s birthday.  I explained to the clerk as best as I could what she liked and her role as an architecture college student to see what suggestions he could offer me.  “Of course, but can you do me a favor first?” he humbly asks as he slides an order form across the glass display cabinet counter to me.  “Can you help me translate this to English? The man is from Germany and can’t understand Spanish.”

Since it was only small words and notes as would be expected on an order form, I had no trouble translating it.  There was just one key word that I double checked in my precious electronic dictionary to be sure that I didn’t write the wrong thing.  He was very grateful and I felt very honored to help; it was one of those Good Samaritan moments.  Of course, the rest of the interaction went well and she just opened her gift a few hours ago–loved it.

When he was writing my receipt I saw him take off 1.5€ which I wrongly assumed was for translating and almost waved my student discount away, but this still highlights the value of knowing English.  We all are really lucky (it is luck because who gets to choose where they are born?) to know English, and better yet, it’s our first language so it was easy and “free” to learn.  No matter where any of us travels in the world, we will be able to communicate with the people or find someone who can without much difficulty.  If you can read, write, or speak English you’re set.

Part of it is due to our ignorance and refusal to learn more languages so the rest of the world has to adapt to us.  English is the language used for politics and business, it makes the world go and is the key to many people’s livelihood in non-English speaking countries. Many countries (including Spain) start teaching English at a very young age, a subject taught and considered with as much importance as Math or Reading in the US–unlike the  elective(read: excuse to have a party in light of the language’s cultural traditions) language classes I started taking in middle school.   Though Mandarin may be spoken by more people, good luck trying to use those skills to decipher a Latin-based text. I’m jealous of their national attempt to make their citizens (children, specifically) at least bilingual.

What started out as using my host sister’s birthday as an excuse for family to get together to celebrate, eat Spanish food (e.g. tortilla espanola, creamy cheese that despite smelling strongly and distinctly of feet everyone but me adored, crusty bread, shrimp with heads and legs still attached, thinly sliced meat from some part of a pig), share some laughs, and drink, turned into singing old Spanish songs acapella and then a crazy dance party.

From 9pm to 2:30am we had either an iPod, computer playlist, CD, or latin/Spanish music videos blaring as we danced in their living room with all the chairs (there were about 15 of us) and table pushed aside. First it was the classic flamenco music, then modern flamenco, then to today’s dance music (thumpa-thumpa songs, as my dad calls them) and Spanish rap with a bit of Latin pop thrown in here and there. (I didn’t know the words to Bailamos it was ALL in Spanish.)

Computer speakers turned into an iPod speaker dock to some rig to get the surround-sound stereo speakers going. Don’t worry, we kind of turned it down a little bit at 12pm to respect the neighbors…but then some other song came on everyone loved and, well, we were all betting that one of the neighbors was going to call or come knocking. (We live in flat in an apartment-like building.) I was impressed some of the younger kids could sleep through it. My host dad was dancing like I don’t even know what, trying all night to reel in people still sitting down to dance with him and whomever else was boogying.

It took me a while to muster up the guts to join them, but once I was up I didn’t go back down. While the two other students also living with me left around 11:30/12 to go out to clubs, I stuck around with the aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins to dance the night away Spanish style.

I had the honor of experiencing Picasso’s great Guernica Friday at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia. I haven’t taken any art classes since middle school, so I didn’t have quite the same appreciation and infatuation for the Picasso exhibit as the two other people I went with. (One girl nearly peed her pants from a mix of delight and disbelief of where she was.) It was a good thing, though, that I didn’t have such an extensive background with Picasso or know the controversy surrounding the piece because I could appreciate it all for what it was instead of getting bogged down by all its baggage.

The Guernica part of the exhibit was nicely laid out, showing the development of the piece with all his studies and practice sketches for certain parts. Thanks to x-ray technology, there was also a projection of the Guernica at different points in its construction so you could see how it looked after, say, 10 months, 20 months, etc. to get the full history and thought behind the piece’s progression. Seeing all these ‘doodles’ made him and the painting seem less godly to me because I’ve always had this idea of a painter walking up to a canvas and just working until poof we have Guernica or what-have-you. Even geniuses have to practice!

Now I’m playing a part in this aura surrounding the piece by not addressing the other 3.5 floors of his works in the exhibit. The Reina Sofia has a few other Picassos besides the Guernica, but many are on loan from a Picasso museum in Paris. Overall, the exhibit highlighted how talented he was. He wasn’t just a painter; he also sculpted wood and bronze, made collages/multi-medium pieces, and other ‘objects’ that I don’t quite know how to categorize.

I was a big fan of all the collage and multi-medium pieces just because they have more depth and I guess symbolic meaning to me than a drawing or painting. He had a musical instrument phase, too, so I held up the other two canvas-oriented people I was with while lingering over these. I was pretending that the violins were violas…

The exhibition evoked conversations ranging from what is real art to pondering all the what-if-someone-did…to the Guernica. I’ll let your imagination fill in all the possible profanities we the other two discussed. Although I wouldn’t cut off my leg to own a Picasso (as the friend who was on the verge of crying and peeing her pants the entire time), it was a very neat exhibit. You have to be a genius to represent all angles of an object on a flat plane (pretend you are walking around the object and you will see all those views in his one representation of it) and to include the bare minimum needed to get an emotion across; forget about art representing what you see, it’s about what you feel.

The museum has made a really nice website and you can practically view the whole exhibit online. Of course, these images are nothing like seeing it in person, where the oil paint has its own dimension and the colors are not orange instead of brilliant yellow.

Use the left-to-right scrollbar below the images to see select works from Room 1, Room 2, Room 3, and Room 4. They go in chronological order so you can get a sense of how he developed as an artist. Now I have to go back and see the rest of the Reina Sofia…

See how her face has all the angles represented in it? And her orange-y skin tone was bright, almost Big Bird yellow. I swear!