Good morning, up and at ‘em! Seriously, though, wake-up call was 8am, breakfast at 8:30, on the bus at 9am. Breakfast was Spanish-style continental: sliced bread, either from a loaf or a baguette, which you could toast on a toaster with a track (put in bread on on side, watch disappear into toaster, toast appears eventually); butter and jams (many of which had crystallized into gunk); juices of various types; graham crackers (which we nicked for later): cheese and slices of sausage, several kinds. Spanish breakfast is pretty light in general.

Today’s touristing started at the Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo, the Royal Monastery of Saint Lorenzo, otherwise known as Escorial. Home to a seminary and a saucy tour guide (with a bit of a gravelly voice, to boot), … okay, really, I don’t have that much to say about Escoliar except that it had lots of Goyas, a lot of vaulted ceilings, very austere housing for the living royal family, and very well-appointed sepulchers for the dead parts. Also of note: before a member of the royal family is to be put to rest in their sarcophagus in the royal mausoleum, the body is left to putrefy (rot) for 25 years in a special room, which is called something like a putrificador (rotting room), after which time the skeleton is moved to its final resting place in the mausoleum proper. Oh, also, the tour guide teased us a little bit, about me joining the seminary, or Matt getting lots of earrings as tokens from all his lovers. That is all.

Francisco Franco was a real big deal. In other words, it’s good to be a dictator: he ordered a basilica to be built into the side of a mountain to house his remains when he died. When I say basilica, I mean BIG FREAKING CHURCH. The thing was massive. Just huge. We were told that a whole bunch of people died in the process of constructing it, of course. It came out pretty magnificently, though, since Franco was super-Catholic and did it up right. In addition to housing Franco’s tomb, they also buried his chief enemy on the other side of the dais. Some revenge =D but yeah, beautiful cathedral, and still in use: they had hours listed for masses.

Although Jorge gave us a big speech about showing up to the bus on time, because if we weren’t all in the bus on time, then the bus would be late, we’d miss our tour, etc., etc., … except for when we don’t have a tour: back on Spanish Standard Time, ten minutes late. We were amused, except for the people who prefer to kvetch than to laugh — they kvetched instead, so everybody was happy in their own way.

What’s the best way to cure kvetching? Food! The bus took us back to Principio Pio, where our hotel is, and the group split up to go to lunch. After looking at a couple different restaurants (The Wok, T.G.I. Fridays, and a Peruvian place), we settled on a Spanish chain called Cañas y Tapas on Gran Vía. We were mostly attracted by their menu del día, which Jorge had informed us was a selection required by the Spanish government: an entire meal for about 10-12€, with a variety of selections for a first course and second course. Of course, after spending twenty minutes trying to translate all the food words, we gave in and just ordered from the page that had pictures and decent prices. I ended up with, surprise surprise, a selection of tapas which included some ham with salmoreja on bread, fried mushrooms, and various other yummy things. Along with the meal, it was obligatory (of course) to drink a caña.

Lunch was but the mid-point of our day, though, and there was still plenty to do! Jorge’s itinerary for the afternoon: a whirlwind tour of the famous Spanish painters in the Prado and the Museo del Sofia Reina. Lots of great art! It was a bit bittersweet, though; while I was glad to glimpse all sorts of famous pieces of art I’ve studied in school, such as Picasso’s Guernica and the statue Hermaphrodite, I would have hoped for another few hours (or days) visiting the museums! Perhaps I’ll spend a free weekend and come back to see the art again.

To contrast the wide survey of all the high culture, Jorge took us down into the depths of Madrid, to take the subway home! It was, um, a subway, but it was efficient and clean, so we were reasonably impressed. That’s all I got, really.

What with all the art on our agenda, Jorge barely left us any time for dinner before our Thursday night “sorpresa.” So, hungry, tired, and rushed, we found a café for dinner: the Café Sereta, off Gran Vía. We step in to find nicely dressed tables with wine bottles on each table. Hmm. Well, we can afford to splurge a little, since we didn’t spend much on lunch — but we won’t open that bottle. The maestra came over to ask if we’d like anything to drink — oh, could we have a photo? Thanks! Now, let’s check out the menu: hmm, 15€ for one person’s portion of paella, minimum two-person plates … oh, this is a café de comida tranquil

The girls went the really quick and easy route, to the kebab place next door to the hotel, but Jason and I ventured a little farther away. Jason and I ended up at the PARAÍSO DE JAMÓN. OH MY GOD SO MUCH HAM. WE HAD A PLATE FULL OF SLICED HAM FOR DINNER AND THAT WAS EVERYTHING. Also a beer and some cake for dessert. PLATE OF FREAKING HAM. CALLED THE FUENTES DEL JAMÓN (sources of ham VERY LOUDLY). alright done now. oh wait sorry HAAAAAAAAAAAAM.

Onto the aforementioned surprise, which Jorge’s been talking it up since he gave us the itinerary last week. Now, he said it was a little expensive, so he hopes that Christina (the program organizer in Delaware) doesn’t mind, but it’s a very interesting event culturally speaking. Well, what is it? SARA BARAS, the world-famous ballet dancer and choreographer, in a flamenco rendition of Bizet’s Carmen. Although we were up in the nosebleeds (the 25€ seats), there wasn’t a bad seat in the house. Cool notes about the production: for the second scene, a wall with five doors was flown in (and the doors were used as dancers in their own right, opening and closing in ripples and whatnot); and for the second and third act, the instrumentalists were put on a dais upstage, sometimes with a scrim in front of them. Very professional lighting, of course, much smoother than Bodas de Sangre. Hilariousest moment of the show: an usher spotted Laura taking photos during the encore across the entire balcony and pointed a laser right across the balcony at her. FML.

The show, which started at 10pm (that’s right, ten at night), let out around midnight. A bunch of people were planning to go out to the clubs, but since another bunch of us unfortunately fell asleep a couple times during the show (thanks to Jorge for not building a siesta into the agenda), we went back to the hotel and Passed Right Out.

Good night — tomorrow is more touristing!

We were standing outside, waiting for the bus when Ashley remarked, “I know exactly what Andy’s blog is going to say: ‘We were standing outside, waiting for the bus…’” Well, we were! It was back to our old bus and driver, the other Jorge (who has a cute little “MADRID: Jorge” mini-license plate, E.U. style, hung up above his head). It’s a comfy little bus that holds probably forty people, so most of the twenty people and change get their own seat (or the five-seat bench in the back). Nonetheless, we loaded up and ended up in pretty much the same arrangement as we did from the Ronda trip. Most people do that in class, too, as usual.

The first stop, after about two hours of driving, was a typical roadside café area with the standard tourist kitsch. Jorge bought us all a drink — that is to say, a café or bottle of water — which we enjoyed nearly as much as the servicios higienicos, or the loo, if you will. This aperatif merely whetted our desire to get back on the road to our destination, but before we got to Toledo ..

… we had to tilt at windmills. Yep, along the way to Toledo are the molinos of fame from the story of Don Quijote de la Mancha. Now I can understand why they’d be mistaken for giants: standing at three stories tall, they dwarf any of the Delawareans who might take up battle with their arms. Fortunately, the worst we put our hand to was a jumping picture in front of the old things.

Next stop: Toledo! (That’s toe-lay-dough or toe-lee-dough depending on how Spanish you’re feeling at the moment.) We were released for a few hours to wander the city before our tour so that we might eat lunch, relieve ourselves of a few duties, etc. Jason chose to visit the American Embassy for the second part — that is to say, the Golden Arches Consulate — while I took care of the bocadillos Carmen had packed for Akin and me. Since I had forgotten mine last week, I looked forward to today’s hearty meal of a Spanish tortilla (potato omelette) on a baguette and cured ham on bread with vinegar. Om nom nom! Also, a banana and an orange, except I dropped my orange on the bus. C’est la vie.

After lunch, all that was left to do was wander and shop. The girls got jewelry. The boys (a.k.a. Jason and I) hit up the sword shops: Toledo claims some certain fame for the sword factory on the edge of the city. Jason picked up two katana — one for his bff slash roommate and one for his birthday self-present — while I came out of the dungeons with a replica of el Cid’s battle sword, la Colada, and Carlos V’s dagger. El Cid, for those of you unfamiliar with Spanish history, was a well-esteemed Spanish swordsman from the … I think 12th century; he was thought so highly of by the Moors that they called him El Cid, which translates to El Hombre or The Man. He was a Cool Guy; also, he had two swords, one for ceremonial purposes and one for battle (the main difference being the handguard on the hilt). Anyway, everyone was very impressed, and it wasn’t too bad of a deal: 83.65 euros for a quality sword with the dagger (priced at 16 euros) thrown in gratis. They didn’t come overly sharpened, but I could still run somebody through pretty easily if I were overcome by bandits in the streets of Madrid.

Our guide met us back at the plaza at 4pm to tourist around the city. She is a very petite and professorly lady (who knows an awful lot, but needs to speak up a little) and showed us an awful lot of neat-o things, like little cherubim making out or at the point of fisticuffs. Those showed up in the first tourist site we visited, the Cathedral of Santa María of Toledo. The place is huge; it’s one of the greatest examples of baroque architecture in Spain. It was also built large enough to cover the entirety of the mosque which preceded it. Of note: three pipe organs, including two in opposition over the chorus, one Baroque-style and one Neoclassical; a very intricately decorated skylight allowing sunrays to illuminate a fancy sculpture in the back of the church; and a set of towers that defeated the wide angle lens on my camera.

While walking to the next part of the tour, our guide showed us one of the delicacies of Toledo: mazapan (marzipan). Specifically, she showed us the city gate done up in marzipan. I coulda eaten that entire town. Unfortunately, our guide doesn’t speak too loudly (and my memory doesn’t go back more than day or two), so I didn’t get to hear too much detail on the marzipan. In addition to marzipan, we dropped by the Interment of Sr. de Orgaz (el Greco). Basically, it’s a little chapel with his tomb and a lovely painting above it.

You’ll remember that Spain used to be home (and is again) to Catholics, Jews, and Arabian Muslims. Toledo is the one place in Spain where the three religious groups could live side-by-side in harmony, at least until the Reconquista of Spain by the Catholics. There’s a sculpture when you enter the city to that effect, something about peace and harmony written in all three languages. Anyway, we visited an old synagogue to prove the point, the Santa Maria la Blanca synagogue from the 12th century. (Seriously, that’s what the sign said: Sa MARIA la BLANCA / MONUMENTO NACIONAL / ANTIGUO SINAGOGA DEL SIGLO XII / XIIth CENTURY OLD SYNAGOGUE.) Although it had been converted into a stables when the Catholics gave the Jews the boot a few centuries back, it still had that synagoguey feel to it. Today there was an art exhibition featuring some contemporary drawings, good stuff: the centerpiece melded the Torah, the city of Toledo, the city of Jerusalem, a Jewish couple, and the word “love” in English, Spanish, and Hebrew. Architecturally speaking, the place looked more like a mosque: the archways were done in a partially Arabic style, with funky curliques in the top of the arches instead of classical or baroque-style decoration. More on this later.

What comes after Judaism? Catholicism, of course! So we walked over to another Catholic site, the Claustros (Cloisters) of San Juan de los Reyes. In the chapel attached, we got to rest our feet for a moment and learn about how, since there was Spain royal lineage coming from Germany (and I really ought to have taken notes about this), some of the royal seals and shields included the double-headed shield from Germany. Seeing all these palaces and old-timey buildings is gonna get me real good on parsing all the symbolism in shields.

The visit to the Cloisters concluded our tour of Toledo, but for one more treat: walking across the beautiful river to our busses. Hilarity ensues as Jorge tries to get us to hurry up to the busses while we see a lovely opportunity to spread out and take photos for twenty minutes. Twenty years in his position as program director and I don’t think he’s used to the digital age yet with all their newfangled gadgets, including cheap cameras. Japanese time for all…

After such a full day of touristing, we were glad to hear that nothing more was scheduled but to drive the few more hours to Madrid, check in to the Hotel Principio Pio, and do whatever we pleased (within legal limits). My roommate Akin was invited to join the triple of boys (since we have an odd number of boys and girls and UD study abroad policy prefers to keep them separate), so I roomed with Jason instead (which was more to our taste anyway). Best perk of hotel: UNLIMITED HOT SHOWERS OH MY GOD SO GOOD.

Incidentally, Jorge elected to give us a per diem on the bus this morning rather than even attempt to host group meal times; so we started the trip with 75 euros for lunch, dinner, and merienda which is basically tea-time, through Sunday afternoon. Since lunch finished off the sammiches from our señoras, dinner was on our per diem. Jason, the girls, and I walked up to Gran Vía, the main avenue of Madrid, to find some food while it was still daylight (so. We decided to put The Wok, a mixed Asian chain restaurant, on the back-burner and, after looking at a few other restaurants, split up: the girls went back to just grab some kebabs next door to the hotel, while Jason and I walked a bit farther to see what there was to eat.

We found the Donkey Cafetería. We took one look at the place, decided it was a dive, then looked up at the sign and decided we had to eat somewhere called the DONKEY CAFETERIA. The place was pretty legit, too, just a bunch of Spanish people and a pugnacious little bartender who said there wasn’t a menu, just the tapas in the heater in front of us. Alright, give us a little of everything: little hot dogs wrapped in bacon and fried, Spanish tortilla, all sorts of yummies.

In addition to enjoying dinner and a beer on Jorge, we definitely took advantage of the alimentaciones just up the street from the hotel to buy some food and beverage supplies for later on in the night. Evening plans for most of the group were to go out clubbing, but my smaller group (Jason, Laura, Ashley, Karen, Analecia, and me) chose to stay in the hotel, in anticipation of more hard-core touristing tomorrow, and play Kings, a “getting-to-know-you” card game. Our game got crashed around 1:30am, a not unreasonable hour, when the barhoppers came back from the bars and got in their jammies. See: photo.

Toledo? Check!

I’ll write all this up on Sunday or Monday once we get home, but this weekend’s excursion is going quite fun-like! Our day trip to Toledo was entertaining (we got some sharp and shinies), Madrid is quite classy (Prado and the Museo Sofia, as well as Sara Baras’ flamenco ballet rendition of Carmen), and today we go to Segovia! I hope there’s enough time to sleep on the bus to make up for the lack of siestas and the staying-up-late-socializing going on around here.

ttyl!

Best part of life: making vague “let’s go hang out at this place” plans with people, then checking back in with them an hour later to hear “oh, we’re actually meeting these people here — do you want to come with?” Pretty nice. That’s how it pretty much rolls with this group of Americans, they’re just genial “let’s go hang out” folks, not exclusive. So, that’s how we ended up sitting on the River Darra at a little sitting area they’ve built right next to the water, where there’s plenty of river to see (instead of later down, where it’s but a trickle, or farther up, where it’s a lot of rocks and plants). That’s all we did, just sit around on a blanket and chat and make plans for the evening. People are fun and not at all goofy. =)

Our evening plans were to go out dancing at this little salsa club called La Habana after meeting up at the Burger King on the corner of Recogidas and Calle Isabel Católica. It’s a great meet-up point because it’s this big BK/Haagen Däs on a big plaza at a big intersection with a nice sitting area outside and fountains and people walking around and whatnot. Well, we met up there, first one or two people, then three or four, and then we ended up with over a dozen tipsy Americans hanging out at a big table in BK at half past eleven at night. There was also a nice Utahn Mormon family at the table next to us, which was probably unfortunate for their small sons.

We decided we’d caused enough ruckus around 11:30 to show up for the 11:00 salsa lesson at La Habana. Spanish Standard Time for the win, folks, for the win. Turns out most of the Americans don’t know salsa, except for Marissa, who learned in Mexico (so she danced with some really tall Spanish guy she brought) and me, who used to help teach it at UD. Nonetheless, we had a good time trying to follow the dance instructor (some really short South American dude) and then just dancing around. Whee! The Latino dancers that were there were great — it’s like they had dancing in their blood or something, go figure. Lotta hip-shaking, sliding across the floor, all that shebang, just a bunch of hot dancers who knew what they were doing instinctually. Kinda jealous that I didn’t grow up that way, but c’est la vie.

Most people left arond 1am, though they plan to come back sometime; and the few of us who were left (Megan Spilatro, Kristen Kenedy, Andrew, and I) peaced out eventually to get a few drinks at Babylon and packed it in around 2:30, when we headed back down to hang out and chat for a bit, then sleep. Mmm, sleep.

Manuel Mayor shared with us a fun story about Carnavale traditions after class today, when we were chatting about our weekends. (Akin wasn’t the only one to go to Granada from the Delaware group; Andrew - the first one in the alphabet - and Hilary also visited.) It used to be the way that, during Santa Semana (Holy Week), all the prostitutes in town would be rounded up and taken to live on an island so that the good men of the pueblo wouldn’t be tempted by their wily ways. After Carneval, though, any meat that was left had to be disposed of somehow, so it would be gathered and the men of the town would pass through the waters and *ahem* throw their meat at the prostitutes. Oh my.

Lunch was a new meal: una cazuela habichuelas blancas, una patata, tajadas de churrizo (white beans, a hunk of potato, and slices of sausage). Num num num.

Since April isn’t too far away, it’s about time to plan for spring break; so, for siesta, we met up at the Café y Té on the corner to enjoy their coffee and their wifi. (Incidentally, I feel as though I’ve seen that mark before, the Café y Té logo, like in Costa Rica or Peru. I’ll post pictures and see what you guys think.) Unfortunately, the wifi router was broken, but the coffee and the pound cake I ordered were yummy (if a bit dry — the pound cake, that is). The people who actually wanted to research trips walked up to the CLM school building, where I joined them later, to take advantage of wifi without too many people in the building. General conclusion of the afternoon: Laura, Karen, and I will probably take a little tour around Brussels, Stockholm, and … um … some other country up that away.

Dinner brought a new delight: a hamburger. A straight-up ham-burger, like a ham pattie grilled on the stove. None of this ground beef and lettuce & tomato business for Carmen, nope, just a ham pattie. It was actually okay, just a little .. um .. pink. Of course, we also had boquerones fritos, fried anchovies, which I’m getting better at eating: I’ve learned to take off the head first, split open the fish, and peel out the spine (which takes off the tail, too). S’ok, just a little messy. They go nicely with the tomato chunks Carmen serves alongside them, too.

Since I feel like it’s the thing to do here after dinner on an off-night, I went out for tapas with Kristen Cadillac, one of the girls from the trip. Since we were both feeling pretty relaxed, I found us this little tapas bar / cafetería which looked genial, not too busy, just a few tables; so we sat there for a while, chatted, had a few beers (Cruzcampo) and tapas. The camarero brought us out first little sammiches of what looked like chicken breast with cheese, along with a bunch of potato chips, for the first round; and on the second round, a long slice of cured ham on bread. Quite a genial evening, we went home when the bar closed around 12:30 or 1am.

Instead of going out to the bars last night, everyone crashed last night — that is, except for Akin, Teela, and Youssef, who didn’t return from Carneval festivities in Cadíz until noon-ish, after I’d already been awake for an hour. While I finished up writing these blog entries from last week, they all passed out (after imparting some choice stories about how Akin managed to get his pockets full of sand). From what the told me, Cadíz was pretty crazy: people running around in crazy costumes, some people running around without any costume at all, people drunk before 9pm, people relieving themselves everywhere including on the cathedral, people passing out and getting carried out on stretchers, not to mention the trash piled up to three feet deep in the morning. They had some loco party stories all their own, too, but those ones aren’t fit for print. Dang, man, dang.

The day passed peacefully enough, good for them to recuperate and me to slog through all the journal entries I’d been neglecting. Lunch was a filling casuela de los fideos, or beef and potato stew with noodles. (Los fideos are the noodles; they’re just a type of cylindrical, medium-sized pasta noodle.) Good and hearty, accompanied by the typical salad (plus avocados and carrots) and fried calamari. Incidentally, casuela translates literally to casserole, but it’s more of a soup pot than the casserole dish you see in the South.

Reasonably well-rested, I met up with Karen to go get some churros con chocolate, which is pretty popular around here. There’s a churrerría cafetería over in the Plaza Bib-Arrambla, below the church, that Georges from Belgium recommended to me, so I took us over there. A plate of churros was a heaping pile of fried dough sticks, pretty amazing; and the chocolate was a mug of thick hot chocolate in which we could dip our churros. We got there around 4pm, not too soon after lunch but before the post-siesta rush, and we sat around and chatted (in mostly Spanish, too). This was all in preparation, of course, for us to go to the theatre…

Bodas de Sangre, by F. Garcia Lorca! A story of jealousy between lovers, a worried mother, etc. etc. The play is typically performed as a flamenco, which was good, since I couldn’t really follow the text (which I probably should have studied last week in preparation to watch this). The theatre itself, el Teatro Isabel Católica, was pretty fab: a pretty typical proscenium theatre with two or three balconies, the seats were wood upholstered in velvet and actually pretty comfortable to sit in. I managed to get us tickets on the floor, but they were also way far in the back (a few seats over from the sound guy, actually). Interesting staging notes: the entire company started out on-stage, dead on the floor and all laying upon each other, and the son and mother dragged them out to the edge of the stage; then, as each member of the chorus spoke, they rose up from the dead and then collapsed when they were done. A coupla times, two members of the chorus would attach to each other, one standing directly behind the other with her arms around the other and moving/speaking in unison; and some other times, the entire chorus would speak in unison, kinda reminded me of reconstructionist Greek theatre. For the last act, they dropped two white scrims (see-through sheets) down and the dancers interacted with the scrim, batting at it to make ripples or waving their hands around in it. Pretty cool effect, though it’s horrible for the scrim since it stretches it out and gets it dirty, which we noticed when they brought all the lights up. So, cool show, I got the gist of the emotional content if not the text of it, we enjoyed ourselves.

Day trip time! Today is our first group excursion, to Rondas, a small traditional (tourist) town in Málga, with a stop off at Menca en route.

Menca, about an hour and a half away from Granada, is the site of a small Iberian megalith which looks upon La Peña, a rock outcropping. The megalith, which basically means “something made of big rocks” (a la Stonehenge) is a small temple housing a deep hueco, a well, and thus was surmised to be a water temple. It is composed of a dozen huge stones for walls, four feet wide each and taller than a man, along with two central columns supporting several more huge stones serving for a roof; the entire complex is then sealed with dirt except for the front door.

As an introduction to the temple, we watched an informative 10-minute computer animation showing what the Iberian civilization was like and how they probably constructed the edifice. The archeologists surmised that the Iberians were a hunter/fisher-gatherer society that used some fancy civil engineering feets to cut out the rocks, move them to the site, and place them. To cut out the rocks, they could pour water into cracks in the rock face and wait for them to freeze and widen the cracks in order to break loose large rocks, then chip them down to size. To move the liths, many men and women all hauling on ropes tied to the rock would move them on top of log rollers across the plain. To place them in pre-dug ruts, pretty much the same thing happened, then the ropes were used to adjust the tilt of the rocks. Pretty snazzy, Iberian Celts, good engineering techniques there.

After the video, we visited the building itself and a tomb next to it and looked out at La Peña, which is a rock outcropping resembling the face of a woman laying down, looking up at the sky. It panned out pretty well, actually, especially if you were standing in the temple’s doorway looking out towards her. Soon after, we loaded back up on the busses to strike towards Rondas. We finished off the hand of the card game we were playing earlier and napped.

The bus dropped us off at a gas station at the lower edge of Rondas so that we might *cough* enjoy the uphill walk into the town. Well, it was rather pretty, and at the entrance to the city proper was a fine, well-built defensive wall with a huge gate. We entered it to look upon the city’s central plaza, quite pretty, though we didn’t stay long, as Jorge soon took us into the town’s church.

To look at the outside of the town church, it just looked like another symbol of Catholicism, perhaps even a little on the smallish side; but once we entered (for a speed touristing), we realized the magnificence and opulence that is a three story-tall Catholic church. Huge vaulted ceilings, displays of massive gilt Spanish Catholic works, murals upon the walls, stained-glass windows, and all the standard accoutrements of a Catholic church. Oh my. In a hallway off the main chapel were some pieces of art under glass, including the head of crucified Jesus wearing a crown of thorns, an awful lot of blood, and a horrified expression on his face (perhaps for lacking his body). Oh, Spain.

Soon enough we were corralled by Jorge and brought to the next part of town, more spreading vistas of the town and countryside. Running through the town is a river — and by river, I mean a 100-foot chasm — so we got to look straight down the cliff face. Boo-tee-ful! A few people were talking about retiring here, maybe buying a hotel or something; and if you looked down into the valley, there were several large, private houses (with their own pools, too, all painted cyan on the inside). Nice place to end up, sure, but the town is still a bit tourist-trappy, with plenty of nice signs directing you to hotels and various parts of town. Jorge told us about a policy established by the Spanish government, from when the tourist trade started picking up, of installing in each tourist town a parador, a nice, overpriced hotel for all the rich Europeans wandering through on their exotic world tours. The parador in this town did indeed look very nice, with several expensive restaurants attached to it (and the McDonald’s right next door).

The last stop on our walking tour was the Plaza de Toros, the first bull-fighting arena in all Spain (I think). The place was a huge arena, practically a hippodrome in scope. The seating reminded me of the Globe Theatre in London, though, with lots of stadium seating and one upper balcony, held up by Corinthian columns and arches. Also see: picture. In the same building were the corrals for the bulls and some other associated stuff, including a mini-museum in the inner hallway of the arena which we didn’t visit.

Jorge released us at 3pm, after visiting the arena, with a reminder to meet back there in an hour and a half to walk up the hill to the bus station — and a stern admonition that if we were late, we’d have to find the bus station ourselves. While the gregarious gaggle of girls took votes on what to do, I decided to wander off and explore the city on my own. Jason caught up with me, so we took to the plaza to find me some food (since I’d forgotten to grab my lunch). Our travels (a short walk in between two hotels) took us into a plaza with a raised dais built into the middle, where they might hold performances for the public. Around the edge of the plaza were various cafes and restaurants, which we noticed went from more expensive to cheaper as you went around the circle. (We later noticed that the cheaper cafe, where we were eating, also ended up a little chilly as it was in the shadow of the building.) To fill my stomach, I ordered chorrizos con papas fritas en vino blanco, little sausages on french fries in a white wine. This little plate of tapas was served with slices of bread and was quite yummy! For the postre, dessert, we took churros con chocolate, which Jason found insufficiently thick (the chocolate, that was) but still decent.

While I did enjoy the company and felt quite debonaire sitting out in a European cafe with a travelling partner, the chorrizos didn’t quite fill me up, so Jason and I tried out the McDonald’s down by the parador. It was, um, a McDonald’s. The food seemed about as good, maybe a titch better, than in the U.S., but for all intents and purposes we might as well have been at home. Nonetheless, it was food, and worth trying just for the experience. (That’s what they all say…)

The rest of the day was quite uneventful: we collected at the designated meeting point, walked uphill to the bus station, loaded up, and went home. Jorge gave us the itinerary for next weekend’s trip, when we’ll be going to Toledo en route to Madrid. He prattled an awful lot after that, a tendency we students have noticed in him, something about how UD and UGR (the University of Granada) have had a twenty year-long relationship with trading professors and students and that a diplomat is necessary to manage that — namely, him. It seemed to be the same speech he gave last week, so while it was nice to hear that he was the go-to guy, I may have missed the point. It doesn’t help that he was standing a few rows behind me, so I couldn’t hear; but either way, I got the opportunity to work on some macrame bracelets and watch out the window at the lovely rolling hills of the Spanish countryside before I passed out. Of note: windmill farms for generating electricity were atop some of the hills! Also of note: Spanish charter busses, while they typically lack built-in toilets, are still pretty comfortable to sleep in.

Summary of day: I’m glad we spent a tranquil day wandering around a traditional countryside town, as the weather was beautiful — barely a cloud in the sky — and it was an opportunity to socialize with my travelling companions in a low-pressure setting where we could actually hear each other (instead of at the bars). This is the stuff study abroads are made of.

Back at home with Carmen and Conchi, we had what looked like a potato omelette (although they call it a tortilla, as opposed to just huevos fritos or fried eggs) along with slices of various types of sausage and maybe a salami with olives. Quite filling, if plain. Afterwards, although we had initially planned to go out to the bars, we decided we were just too wiped out from last night and all of today and crashed early.

God knows what we did in class. I’ve certainly forgotten what exactly we talked about. The rest of the day is a little hazy, too, and not very eventful, so I’ll just fill you in on a few stories.

Laura invited me to come up with her, Karen, and Jessica to walk up Sacromonte, the hill above Granada that overlooks the Alhambra. There’s some great views of both the Alhambra and the city below you. There’s also an awful lot of gypsies and flamenco caves.

Early on in our walk, as soon as we got up to the gypsy area, a woman invited us to come into her cueva de flamenco — a bit of a small dance hall, inset into the hill, for flamenco performances — to take pictures (¡gratis!). Um … sure! But as soon as we walked in, she cracked open a beer bottle and offered it to us — in fact, she offered it first to Karen, who doesn’t drink at all. No, no, we told her, Karen doesn’t drink beer. So, what about me, I should drink it; after all, the bottle is already opened. No thanks, lady; I don’t want to be under obligation to a gypsy. Good try, though.

We made our way a bit further up the hill, around all the other flamenco caves. We hope to come back to watch a show sometime. Camborio is also up there in the hills and seems like a pretty hopping place — it’s a dance club that Akin and Teela have been going to, as they have an alliance with Dolce Vita (the bar popular with North Americans) to advertise together and pay for free taxis from the bar to the club some nights.

A little further up the hill, we met an older hippy hanging out on a bench making leather goods: bracelets of various types, some books, wallets, etc. We chatted with him for a bit while I dickered over what kind of bracelet to buy, since he had various types that attracted me. I settled eventually on a bracer about an inch wide with leather cords to tie it closed and a criss-cross pattern on top. Funny enough, it turned out that the guy, whose name was Francisco Javier, originally came from Chile and his father was from Arica, the city at the north of Chile where I lived on my Chile/Peru study abroad last winter. Perhaps I’ll meet him again, some other time I hike up through the hills.

Higher up from Fran’s perch, we discovered a great camp site with some caves (mostly for dumping). One trekker had already staked out the spot, with his gold foil bedroll lashed to a cross-country backpack and a chair to sit in and look out over the city. He didn’t talk much when we said hi, so I suspect he might have been enjoying a his trip.

A funny thing happened when we came over the hill: on one side, you could look down and see all the gypsy homes; on the peak, a school, church, and cell phone tower; and on the other side, lots of well-built, posh neighborhoods; and along the crest of the hill between them, a high wall. Cute. We hiked back down the hill, against the advice of one little girl who told us to go straight down the road and catch the bus, and eventually found our way back downtown.

Everyone was home for dinner, since Youssef, Teela, and Akin planned to go to Carnaval in Cadíz on Saturday and were thus staying in for the night to prepare (that is to say, sleep). After dinner, I met up with the crew — Karen, Jess, Laura, and Ashley — with Jason so we could get some tapas at Taberno Quinto Piso up Alhamar, which we like because it’s small, not crowded, and the impresario is a nice guy with a cool mustache. For our tapas, we tried lomo con queso, which turned out to be a little bocadillo (a small sandwich) with cheese and what was either lamb or pork, we couldn’t tell.

After tapas, it was time to go over to the Pub Habana for the show! We ran into Miriam, the bar’s shill, on the corner again and she gave us the scoop on the cover charge and drink specials. She also said the show wouldn’t start for a while, so we wandered around for a bit and made our way to the river before we went in to the Pub Habana, which had mostly twenty-something guys. We milled about for a while and, y’know, drank drinks waiting for the show. It was real good times and they even pulled up Ashley on stage! You’ll have to find the pictures and videos on Facebook, if you can, since I didn’t bring my camera.

So, the show was fun, worth the 10 euro cover charge (which included a mixed drink and a 4 euro price-tag on the second drink plus a free shot of honeyed whiskey). The only downside? We got home at 3:30am, the night before a day excursion. Three cups of water before bed, that’s my due!

I always love how one can tell when textbook writers are either bored or attempting to be hip. I submit to you the first practice sentence from my grammar class homework for the weekend:

1. Cuando (hacerse, tú) _ el piercing y (enseñar) _ el ombligo estarás mucho más sexy. or, in English, When you (to do, you) __ the piercing and (to show) _ your navel, you will be much more sexy.

… 6. A Pinocho, cuando (mentir) ___, le crece la nariz. which translates to, For Pinoccio, when (to lie) ___, his nose grows.

As for culture class, we looked at the Spanish school system. El Analfabetismo is practically nonexistent here, except for a few older people who are still illiterate. In fact, Spain has the most universitarios, current students or college graduates, in all of the European Union; unfortunately, there’s also a very high unemployment rate among people with college degrees and, in fact, a carpenter could get more work and better pay than a university graduate.

A quick summary of the Spanish public school system: kindergarten from 3-6 y.o.; primary school until 12; secondary school until 16; and then typically, but not obligatory, professional school or a bachillerato to prepare for college. (There is some home-schooling, but it’s not very common.) To get into college, there is an institutionalized test called la selectividad similar to the SATs, but much more directly related to being matriculated along with your school grades. Universities across Spain have pretty equal prestige, so most students attend the university closest to them and merely live at home with their parents — indeed, until they get married and move out. There’s a Spanish saying, “Live off your parents until you can live off your children.”

Lunch was nothing new; I think it was just lentils again. Filling but it’s whatever. I was more interested in my plans for later: a Spanish student had sent me an email last night to tell me he had found me in the language partner listings and was wondering if I wanted to meet up for coffee. Of course! His class was at 8pm, but he had time to take a break from studying to meet up at 6:30.

Francisco Ortigosa, my first intercambio (language partner) is a student from Málaga studying to take the TOEFL, a standardized English fluency test, in order to win a scholarship to go to Washington, D.C., to work an internship with the Spanish embassy there. A nice guy, he looked to be a young twenty-something who would fit in fine in his current position as director of publicity and public relations; his Flickr account certainly showed off his artsy Mac skills! Our conversation switched back and forth in between Spanish and English, oftentimes mid-sentence. Fran’s English is pretty good, but he showed me some of the practice TOEFL exams he has to take and they’re a little on the silly side. It’s a pretty typical standardized test format: the examenee is required to read a one-page article and fill in little bubbles answering questions about the article. The content of the articles is what’s ridiculous, though: very niche science articles about deep-sea exploration, nanotechnology development, etc., and some culture articles today. It’s perfectly comprehensible to a college student who’s a native English speaker (and accustomed to having to learn various science and humanities vocab words on the fly in readings), but dang would it be a stretch for some second-language learners!

While we chatted, we drifted across various topics, from discussing the pros and cons of Mac, Linux, and PC, to theatre and cinema, to how a French girl who Fran met in London advised him to visit Ronda, which is only an hour away from his hometown. At the cafe, which is just around the corner from the CLM building, Fran had a Coke and I tried a café sólo, which turned out to be an espresso. The typical Spanish cup of coffee is café con leche or half-coffee, half-milk. (I thought that was supposed to be a café Americano, but what do I know, being an American and all.) So I’ll probably call him up again to hang out, maybe with Jason (whom Fran met with yesterday), while he’s still in Granada; he’s only here for two more weeks, until he takes the TOEFL test.

When we walked back to the CLM for Fran’s 8pm class, I was left with nothing to do but follow my whims. This caprice led me to the CLM-organized night walk through the forest at the foot of the Alhambra, which was to meet in just half an hour! On my way to the meeting point, the fountain in Plaza Nueva (on the edge of the Albayzin, pretty close to the Alhambra’s entrance), I grabbed a chicken kebab from Kebab King on the street. There’s a lot of Turkish and kebab restaurants up on this side of town; in fact, our professor María José recommended that we try a döner kebab or a schwärma. Although I was expecting a shish kebab, the chicken kebab was pretty tasty: the guy put a pile of salad and some sauce into a pita pocket, then added pieces of chicken he had sliced off a spit and cooked on a burner. Handy and yummy!

The forest walk was led by an Andalucian guy (not originally from Granada, though) named José. He wasn’t your typical tour guide, but a very peppy, knowledgeable guy who dressed kinda like he was ready to backpack across Europe. Also, he enticed us to engage in conversation by carrying a big bag full of tiny caramelos (candy lozenges) and awarding us one if we answered a question of him. Along with us were a few Americans girls from an API program, I think some Germans, and a Granadina profesor. In short, we walked around and about the base of the Alhambra and learned some old Arabian myths, stories about various nuts and trees, and that his group was also doing a night tour of the Albayzin in two or three weeks which I’d like to attend with one of the girls from my group. Although we were getting a little sleepy by the end of it, the light hike was nice and José was both informative and entertaining, if not a little bit of a jokester at times (and sometimes crude, per the Arabian myths).

It’s a little rough to live with 10 people in one apartment: the Italian boys steal all the hot water in the morning! I decided to wait until after lunch to shower, instead of before breakfast as I typically do. Good thing we’re in Europe, where a little B.O. isn’t as big of a deal — eau [sic] naturale, if you will, is all good. Also, it’s still pretty cool out, high of 17′C (lower 60s’F).

Manuel Mayor typically finishes the lecture for our grammar class a little before the class period is over, so he likes to chat a little bit, ask what we’ve been doing in the evenings, see if we’ve learned any Spanish slang yet. We told him that we picked up “de putamadre” (which translates to “awesome,” more or less) and Manuel Mayor told us a little story about a student from a few years ago who had learned that phrase from his friends here. When his host mother (a fine lady of 65 years) brought him dinner one night and asked how it was, rather than saying “delicioso” or “riquissimo,” he just said “¡Putamadre!” His mother was taken rather aback: she thought he was talking about not the food, but her! Oh my.

Some interesting notes from our Spanish culture class:

• There are two kinds of people in Spain: fumadores y ex-fumadores, but in the last twenty years, smoking has come down a lot, with it forbidden in many buildings now.
• Although abortion was legalized post-Franco, the free, public health-care system does not cover the pill (female contraceptive). Nonetheless, it does cover the morning-after pill.
• Gay marriage is legal; furthermore, Spain was the first country to legalize adoption within a gay marriage.
• Divorce was legalized in 1981, a few years after Francisco Franco’s dictatorship ended, and millions took to the streets (which translates pretty literally) to get the paper formalizing the conjugal separation.
• The word “maricón” (gay person) derives from “mariposa” (butterfly), and it’s pretty neutral in Spain. There’s a few other words, too, that derive from the word for “ladybug” and another I can’t remember.
• The general age of Spain leans more towards older citizens and retirees, which became a problem with supporting the retired citizens. To alleviate this, they extended the retirement age; but now there aren’t as many jobs opening up for younger people.
• Hand-in-hand, the unemployment rate for university graduates is pretty high as it is, to the point that a blue-collar worker can be higher paid and have more job stability than a white-collar worker.
• Where those students get educated is less important than it is in the US, though, as all universities have pretty equal prestige across Spain; thus, many students merely live at home and attend the university in their city.

Carmen served lentils with a few chunks of sausage for lunch, which was quite filling. She keeps trying to feed Teela a little extra (more than the boys), but the girl’s stomach is only so big! I’m amused when she has a little left on her plate when we clear the table, since it means we ate the same amount.

Today on the social calender was a trip to see sunset from the Mirador de San Cristobal, the lookout point upon the Alhambra. It’s a bit of a walk, from Plaza Nueva in the middle of the city up the hill by the edge of the Albayzin along the Carrera del Darro, another river; then you turn up Horno de Oro and start climbing up the hill until you reach the Mirador, which has both a church and a mosque along with a nice wall and some benches everyone sits on to look out over the city. The ambience up there is pretty groovy, a lot of hippies out selling their wares to the tourists, people playing guitar and accordian, jugglers, one guy with a unicycle, and a gypsy child who was just the cutest little thing, must’ve been four, running around with a squeaky toy hammer that the juggler had. I hope to end up hanging out there a lot, since the hike’ll be nice and the gypsies are cool people, too; I started working on a piece of macramè (a friendship bracelet) and one of them wandered over to chat. Good Times.

Since it started getting cold once the sun went down, most of the gypsies packed up to head back down to the Albayzin, as did we. Today is Liz’s birthday, so they all went out to a bar and then a club; and then she and Marissa, her roommate, ended up at Granada Diez, which is a dance club up on the edge of the Albayzin. Their night didn’t end until an hour before class; more on that tomorrow.

My night? I meant to go out to a jazz jam session I saw on a concert listing, maybe with Analecia, or go dancing with everyone else. Instead, I ended up sitting in my room, talking with Akin, Teela, and Youssef until the wee hours of the morning (when we actually did our homework) and working on macrame. Akin was right when he said that our talks were addictive, but I can understand: we’re four interesting people from different backgrounds who like to talk!

At least we got a good night’s sleep, more or less. ¡A dormir!