Day in the rabid centro

Yesterday the Geranios program took us to la Rábida. It was fun, but one of our less eventful excursions. We first toured an old church where Christopher Columbus did many important things. The church was run by actual monks. The monks sell the entrance tickets and rent out audio-tours. We then went to a mini-museum with models of the three ships from the Columbus voyage to America. Hillary and I had fun taking wacky pictures on the Santa María model. We also stopped by a little park. I wish I had more to report, but it was pretty uneventful, overall.

When we got back to Sevilla, Hillary and I went to a bakery. I've passed this bakery several times a week and have always wondered what their pastries would taste like. You can smell the amazing smells from the sidewalk outside. We each got a delicious pastry and were pleased with our desserts. We then went on a walk around the Centro. Apparently spring weekend weddings in Sevilla are more common than I though, I think we saw about five different bridal parties. We also saw a large group of men leaving one of the churches with shirts tied over their heads. We later saw the same group of men lifting a large wooden structure and carrying it along one of the main streets at the edge of the Centro. They were practicing marching for Semana Santa, which starts in a week. I didn't manage to get any good pictures of the marching practice, but I did get a picture of the men in headdresses.

Pictures:
1) those interesting men in their headdresses walking over to their practice location
2-4) Hillary and I had some fun with my camera on the Santa María
5-6) pretty flowers at the church

Jews in Spain! (finally)

Whew, it's been a tough week so far. I finished the last of my midterms today, so now I actually have time for updates.

One of the English teachers at Mercedes's school was sick yesterday, so I took over the children's classes. I worked with a couple of 5-year-olds and an 8-year-old on colors, numbers, and animals. Volunteering with Miriam was especially enjoyable. She is so fun to talk to. She's very mature, sometimes I forget she's only 11. She said that making music with me at the end of our English conversation is her favorite part of the day. I'm still teaching her some songs, and I'm so glad she's having a good time. I'll have to get a picture with her some time soon.

Last weekend, Elliot and Jeff came to Sevilla. Elliot was a Kohn intern with me last summer. He worked in San Francisco and I worked on the Peninsula, but we saw each other every week for our intern seminars. He's spending this year studying in Granada, which is about a 3-hour train ride away. Jeff, Elliot's cousin, has been traveling around Europe this semester, since he graduated a semester early. They met up and came to visit the beautiful city of Sevilla, and fun times were had by all. Also, I finally spent time with another Jew!

First of all, Elliot and Jeff didn't know where they were going to stay before they got here. I think they were going to keep their eyes open for hostels while we were exploring the city. I told Mercedes the morning of their arrival that we'd be stopping by the house to temporarily drop off their things, since they didn't know where they were sleeping yet. She offered to have them stay here. It was the sweetest, most generous offer! Host parents are expected to care for their host children, but not their host children's friends. Mercedes has already gone above and beyond what most Spanish mothers do by letting me have friends over to the house. Offering to host two strangers for a night was amazing. She also tried to feed them. Funny, she reminds me of my Jewish mother in many ways.

So Elliot and Jeff were very pleased to learn upon arrival that they had friendly, free, and fabulous lodgings for the night. (We have an extra room with two beds where the Italian girls stayed, so they had a very comfortable place to sleep.) We all thanked Mercedes many, many times, and the guys bought some flowers for the family as a thank-you. Ironically, it's really hard to buy nice flowers without buying huge bouquets. Single roses were 8€ each ($10.66). That strikes me as a little expensive...

After settling in, we went for lunch at a wonderful place near the Cathedral. Elliot loves bread (and mostly bread), so he bought a loaf at the bakery. Jeff and I each had these platters of several delicious tapa-like dishes, which came with wine and bread. And olives, Marc's favorite. [Marc strongly dislikes olives, just to clarify.] All the food was delicious. I was also pleasantly surprised to discover that the wine did not taste as bad as I usually think wine tastes. I'll post a picture of my lunch at the bottom. I forgot to take pictures of my desserts, the place we ate at had a wonderful dessert counter.

After lunch, we walked over to the Plaza de España. We must have seen three or four different wedding parties on the way there. I think every bride in Spain decided to get married this weekend. By Sunday, we had probably seen five or six of them. Elliot and I actually saw a little bit of a wedding ceremony while we were looking in a church later that night. I took pictures of some of the brides. Spanish wedding dresses are very elegant, and frequently displayed in windows throughout the center of town.

We then strolled through Parque María Louisa, crossed the bridge into the Triana neighborhood, and circled back around to the Centro. Walking around Sevilla is lovely, there are so many things to see. The next day we toured through Alcázar and visited the gardens. Students get in free, which I think I'll have to take advantage of more. With half an hour until they had to start heading toward the train station, Elliot and Jeff wanted to go into the Cathedral and climb La Giralda. I decided not to go in, since admission was not free and we had so little time. We parted ways, and I went to look in a store next to the Cathedral at pretty magnets. When I got out and started walking home, I actually ran into Elliot and Jeff again! The Cathedral was closed, and they couldn't go in. It was a shame they missed it, but we got to walk through the park again and go to the train station together. It was a very good weekend!

Pictures:
1) left to right, Jeff, Elliot, me - yet another fun picture with the statues next to the Cathedral
2) miniature figurines of people who march in Semana Santa (not KKK)
3) Spain loves Obama
4) couple posing for pictures in the park
5) bride going into one of the churches
6) my delicious lunch
7) Jews with ham? That doesn't sound very kosher...

First exam and Granada conclusion

Wow, that long post was long. This one will be much shorter.

I had my first exam today in Semantics. I think it went very well. It took me about half an hour, then I spent another half hour filling out class evaluations. I was the first one done, but I can only check over my work so many times before declaring it finished, so hopefully that's okay.

I have two more exams next week, wish me luck.

I also have more pictures from Granada.
1) really nice street vendor setup, selling tea (I really took this picture for Marc)
2) interesting clothing store near the hostel
3) my room in the hostel
4) taken from the hills, you can see the Alhambra in the distance
5) cave homes
6) closer picture of cave homes
7) even closer picture of cave homes, including cave dog
8) the pikachu selling balloons that I mentioned earlier

Granada elaboration

Here are the details from that general outline I gave earlier:

- I had a train ticket for the wrong day. Hillary, my travel companion, missed the train to Granada.
My train ticket was supposed to take me to and from Granada on Saturday, which I was not aware of. I thought I could tell my program director before the trip that I was staying until Sunday, and then our tour guide would buy the right tickets. Last time we did a trip like this, she asked me the day before if I was staying the night, so I thought that telling her several days before would be okay.

Apparently it wasn't. She said our guide already had our return tickets, and if he couldn't exchange mine for one on Sunday, I'd have to go back on Saturday. Since I'd already paid for my hostel and gotten really excited about the trip, this was a very bad thing. Luckily, the guide was able to change the tickets and all was well.

I booked a hostel with Hillary, a friend from the Geranios program. She's the one who originally convinced me to stay the night in Granada. I was very worried when we boarded the train and she wasn't there yet. Not only would she have missed out, but I would have been alone in a strange city, neither of which would have been good. Luckily, Hillary managed to buy a bus ticket to Granada and got in a couple of hours after the rest of us did. She even got there in time to see the Alhambra, which was good. That's the biggest reason to come to Granada.

Basically, in the end, my train ticket was fixed and Hillary made it over and we had a fabulous time.

- We visited the Cathedral where Fernando and Isabela (Spanish spellings) are buried and saw their tomb.
I think that one is pretty self-explanatory. It was lovely.

- We saw the Alhambra, one of the most visited (and beautiful) places in Spain.
It was quite a hike, but we made it to the top of the main castle and had a view of the entire city. I took a whole bunch of pictures.

- Hillary and I stayed at the Funky Backpackers Hostel, breakfast and guitar included.
The woman who worked there was very nice. She told us which neighborhoods were fun to visit, how to find tapas bars, and how to get to the gypsy caves. This hostel does a bunch of activities, including communal meals, tapas tours, flamenco shows in the caves, and trips to the Arab baths. Hillary and I didn't do any of those things, since we had our own agenda, but I'm sure we would have if we'd been there longer than one night.

Our room was at the top of 4 flights of stairs, and we shared it with two other girls. One was from Indonesia, one from Argentina. We also met people from Germany, Sweden, and Australia. Most of the people at the hostel were pretty young, close to our age. Our room had its own kitchenette and was located next to a living room and a rooftop terrace. I found a nylon string guitar in the living room and spent a little bit of time playing and singing. It plays similarly to my (mom's) guitar, which I like.

- We walked around the Albaicín neighborhood, which has a very Moroccan style.
A whole bunch of street vendors line the sides of a few alleyways, and the alleys are flooded with color. They sell incense, belly dancing costumes, hookahs, trinkets, colorful pants, jewelry, and many other shiny things. This is an area you want to be careful in, since it's frequented by tourists and the pickpockets like to hang out there.

- For dinner we had Chinese tapas and I discovered tinto de verano.
Hillary and I explored the city, then walked around for about an hour trying to find a nice place to eat. We knew we wanted to find a place with free tapas. In Granada, you get a free tapa with every drink you order in almost any restaurant. The more drinks you order, the fancier your next tapa is. We wanted to find a place to sit outside, since the weather was beautiful, the street had so much going happening in it, and the smokers filled the restaurants with smoke.

After searching for a long time for the perfect place, we found an adorable little Chinese restaurant right next to one of the main plazas. We ended up sitting inside, but at a counter right up next to the window, facing the plaza. We each ordered a sangría and were given tapas with chow mein noodles. They were delicious. Next, Hillary ordered a strange drink from the menu that she didn't recognize and I ordered a tinto de verano. She didn't like her drink, but mine was very tasty. It was like sangría with lemonade. I think the second tapa was chicken, and I don't remember what the third one was. Looking back, I realized I should have taken pictures of the food.

I must say, it's quite strange to be able to order alcoholic drinks here. The sangría in the Chinese place was the first real drink I've had since the wine tasting in Jerez, which was awhile ago. I'll be 21 when I get back home, so I guess I'll need to get used to being of legal age. Hillary is like me, completely uninterested in getting drunk, just interested in trying new things. I think we made very good travel companions.

- We navigated through the gypsy maze in the Sacramonte neighborhood.
We climbed through the hills of the Sacramonte neighborhood in order to reach the caves, but we got very lost and ended up just aiming for the direction we thought the caves were in. The Sacramonte neighborhood is one of those neighborhoods with a hundred tiny, twisting alleyways that you won't find on a map. We stumbled across some very cute plazas and shops and restaurants during our wandering, and found some nice places to take pictures.

- We hiked by the caves in the hills where the gypsies live.
Eventually we made it to the other side of the Sacramonte neighborhood and found the caves. There are people who build their homes in the sides of the hills and live up there. We walked around the area and took pictures, but didn't actually venture down into the cave neighborhood, since we weren't sure how safe it was. There were some beautiful views from those hills, and more pictures were taken.

- Before we left, we had a delicious lunch with musical accompaniment.
After visiting the caves, Hillary and I went to a street that that the woman at our hostel said was full of tapas restaurants. We found a wonderful place right in the middle of a bunch of other tapas resaurtants. We sat out in the street and listened to some performers who walked all over playing music. We actually ran into the same performers later when we returned to our hostel. They played Hava Nagila, which I found very exciting. Lunch was delicious. We had a tapa that looked sort of like cous cous, a gazpacho-like soup, and an omelet with asparagus and shrimp. While we were finishing up, we saw a giant pikachu walking down the street selling balloons from a high balloon tower. It was interesting, to say the least.

That was our trip! We checked out of the hostel, left plenty of time to get to the train station, and returned to Sevilla.

All the pictures below are from the Alhambra. I'll post some pictures from the hostel, the city, and the caves next time.

Granada introduction

First of all, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD AND GRANDMA! Enjoy your days, I wish I could celebrate with you both.

I just got back from my trip to Granada a couple of hours ago. I had a wonderful time! I'm exhausted, so I'll give a basic outline of what I did here and go into detail later.

- I had a train ticket for the wrong day. Hillary, my travel companion, missed the train to Granada.

- We visited the Cathedral where Fernando and Isabela are buried and saw their tomb.

- We saw the Alhambra, one of the most visited (and beautiful) places in Spain.

- Hillary and I stayed at the Funky Backpackers Hostel, breakfast and guitar included.

- We walked around the Albaicín neighborhood, which has a very Moroccan style.

- For dinner we had Chinese tapas and I discovered tinto de verano.

- We navigated through the gypsy maze in the Sacramonte neighborhood.

- We hiked by the caves in the hills where the gypsies live.

- Before we left, we had a delicious lunch with musical accompaniment.

This blog was really an excuse to put in a round of pictures. All these pictures were taken at the Alhambra. The last one is the Cathedral, just one tiny part of the gorgeous view. I wish these pictures could convey the texture and color and clarity that I saw while I was there, but this will have to do. I'll update soon!

"Leaving on a jet plane" for upcoming travels

Volunteering with Miriam yesterday was particularly fun. Last time Miriam and I talked, she played flute for me, so we agreed that I would play guitar for her and sing when my voice got better. Yesterday was the first day I fully had my voice, so when we finished our hour of English conversation, we went into the room with the electric guitar and I played her some music. I have really missed playing guitar since coming to Spain. Miriam liked the guitar playing, so I'm going to try to teach her how to play "Leaving on a Jet Plane," since it has only three chords. During the middle of one of the songs I was playing, the door opened. It was Natalia (the woman who teaches English while I'm there) and one of her students, Nacho. (Yes, his name is really Nacho.) They listened for the rest of the song, and Natalia really seemed to enjoy the music. She asked me to sing more when I was done. Mercedes later told Angel that she had heard me sing at the school and that I have been hiding a very good voice. It was a good day.

This Saturday the Geranios group is taking an excursion to Granada. We'll see the Alhambra, which is supposed to be beautiful. Hillary (another Geranios student) and I are spending the night in a hostel so we can have some extra time there. Our hostel is called the Funky Backpackers Hostel, and they offer some really cool activities. One thing they do is a "tapas tour." I think that means they take you around the different tapas bars and you eat lots of tapas. I like the sound of it. I'll post an update after that happens.

There's a program here called DiscoverSevilla that takes American students on trips. They're doing a beach weekend in Lagos, Portugal, and I think I'm going to sign up. Hillary is already signed up, so we'll be able to share a room and spend the weekend in Portugal together. This should be a really amazing trip, and will probably be my biggest one before I leave Sevilla.

The plans for my two weeks in Europe with Marc at the end of the semester are solidifying. We now have almost all our transportation set up, and my dad has helped us find some hotels. We'll be visiting Madrid, Paris, Venice, Florence, and Rome. This will be our first time in most of the cities we're going to. I'm very excited about the trip, I think it'll be a great end to the semester.

Pictures:
Almost all of these were taken at the Plaza de España and the Parque de María Louisa. It was a gorgeous day, so I took a walk. This place is about 20 minutes from my house. The last picture is in a little playground by my house where the family walks the dogs. All the walls are completely covered in graffitti. I took more pictures, but this one was my favorite.

Loving those allergies

I had a second visit with a doctor. My sore throat came back, and this time I had lots of sneezing to go with it. The doctor said it was allergies and prescribed me an antihistamine. Marc is sending me a care package (yay!), and over-the-counter medication will be included. I won't be able to get more meds here without a prescription, which requires a $47 consultation, so the care package will be very welcome. The allergy pills I got after my last doctor visit helped a lot, and I'm feeling much better. I hear the pollen in Sevilla is pretty bad during the spring, so I'll brace myself.

We did an interesting exercise in Semantics, matching occupations with how people of those occupations might define love, using contextual clues. It's like one of those forwarded email jokes describing how different famous people answer "Why did the chicken cross the road?" Somewhere along those lines. It'd take me too long to type the entire thing in both Spanish and English, so I'll just put my English translation in here. I thought it was funny.

Profession - Definition of Love

Nun: It's something celestial, because it arrives until the soul. [Didn't quite get the translation of this one...]
Military man: It's the best way to combat an enemy of the opposite sex.
Teacher: It's something instructive, because it teaches all and learns a lot. It's a very educational relationship.
Electrician: It's a phenomenon because, with time, it is able to "dar la luz" [meaning both give light and/or give birth].
Mathematician: It's an operation in which you look for the complementary number. The pair is the sum of two people.
Engineer: It's the most important scientific project that you can design in your life.
Doctor: It's a sickness, then it always ends in bed.
Economist: It's an inversion: some times you can win, other times lose.
Chef: It's a marvel to find the most adequate ingredients for each dish, to cook to a slow fire and avoid burning.
Photographer: It's an art, because in its poses is the quality.

In dog news, Mercedes says Lisa's not pregnant yet. I don't know if she can really tell or not, but she doesn't think I'll get to see the puppies before I leave. I hope she's wrong, but we'll see what happens. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Raining cats and dogs

Our cold, rainy weather has returned. This week is going to be spent indoors. I think everyone I know here has been sick at some point during the semester. Sounds like I wasn't alone.

Lisa and Iago, my two host dogs, are going to make puppies! My host family wants a litter of puppies, so this is the first time Lisa and Iago have not been separated during her fertile period. As a result, there has been a lot of dog love around the house. A dog gestation period is 9 weeks, so if Lisa gets pregnant now, I'll get to see adorable little puppies two weeks before I leave. Puppies get really cute around 3 weeks when their eyes open and they can start to see and hear, but I'd still like to see them before I go. I promise to take lots of pictures if the puppies arrive before May 16th.

This last weekend, Brittney and I took a walk around the city. We crossed the bridge over to the Triana neighborhood, it was the first time I'd been on the other side of the river. We took some pictures.
1) one of many tiny little alleyways in the Barrio de Santa Cruz
2) a sculpture next to the Cathedral
3) ...and another one
4) leftover jamón legs in the dumpster next to a restaurant
5) apparently striped shirts are popular
6) view of the river from the bridge
7) the Torre del Oro next to the river