Madrid

On Friday we got up bright and early to get to the train station for our weekend trip to Madrid! We took the AVE, the high speed train, which cuts the trip from 5 hours to 2 and a half. It was pretty comfortable and they played a movie (Get Smart) so it went by pretty quickly. When we got to Madrid, we dropped off our bags and headed out to explore. We passed through the Plaza de España (wonder how many of those there are in Spain…) and then meandered down the streets heading in the direction of Madrid’s version of Central Park. Madrid is a huge city and so much more cosmopolitan than Seville – everyone is speaking a language other than Spanish and it feels like the city is just tourists. It would definitely be easier to get by in Madrid than Seville if you didn’t speak Spanish because absolutely everyone speaks English, which gets kind of annoying sometimes when they respond to you in English even though you asked them a question in Spanish, but obviously boosts their tourism. Madrid also has incredible buildings. After wandering through some cute streets and some commercial streets, we ended up at the Plaza Mayor (see picture below and keep in mind, people live there!) which has a really cool mural and all of these crazy street performers, such as a woman covered in fake fruit or a man who has two scary masks sitting on a table and moves them as people pass by. We wandered out of the plaza and of course found a cookie store. After getting a few for the road, we continued on toward the park. We passed through Puerta del Sol, the plaza that is in the center of Madrid, but it under heavy construction so we continued on. Then we meandered down Gran Vía, stopping every two seconds to take another picture of the beautiful early 1900s buildings that line this main road. At this point, we decided to stop to eat our bocadillos in a small plaza next to the fountain of Cibeles, another landmark of Madrid that sits at the end of Gran Vía. Then we finally made it to the Parque del Retiro. The park is gorgeous – very lush and green and well landscaped. There are fountains everywhere, topiary in some places and statues in others. The best part of the park, however, is the pond that sits in front of a huge monument to one of the King Alfonsos. At the pond, they had paddle boats to rent so we decided to take one out for a little while. It was so much fun despite my lack of coordination and arm strength! The weather was beautiful, the scenery was beautiful, and we got to float across the pond and take it all in. Of course, there were some obnoxious teenagers having a water fight but also an adorable family with children in matching outfits (they are really big on that here). After soaking up our fair share of sun, we decided to head back towards the hotel, yet again passing by Gran Vía and Puerta del Sol. Our hotel is located right next to the Palacio Real, the palace where the kings used to live and where royal functions are still held (now the royal family lives in a more “modest” palace an hour outside of Madrid so they can have a more normal living situation – yeah right!) Luckily, since it was later in the afternoon there was almost no line to get in and we got to walk through some of the old bedrooms and current banquet halls. No pictures are allowed inside the palace but basically it can be summed up in one word: chandelier. Each room had a bigger, gaudier, and shinier chandelier than the last and it got to be a little ridiculous by the end. Because each new king would come in and redecorate, the décor was a little schizophrenic at times – with one room very classical and the next more modern and brightly colored but it made for a very interesting viewing experience. After we were oversaturated with gilt, we sat outside on the grass for another cookie and headed back to the hotel for a much needed siesta. For dinner, we decided to do a “tapas crawl” where we had one or two tapas at three different restaurants. None of them wowed me, but they were still good and it was fun to try different places instead of staying in one restaurant all night. Funny menu translation of the night: sangria = bleeding (as if they needed a translation for sangria?!)

Where we ate lunch the first day


Metropolis - one of the buildings on Gran Vía


Pond in Parque del Retiro

Rowing the paddle boat

Saturday we woke up bright and early to get to the complimentary hotel breakfast in time. Of course, it turns out that since we have a group breakfast, we are on the side with the small buffet longingly staring at the other side with its luscious fruit and steaming trays of eggs. I can’t complain too much, however, since there were surprisingly good churros and we made “contraband” bocadillos for lunch (the waiter had sternly told us earlier that we weren’t allowed to bring food out of the dining room but we’re trying to save money!) Despite still being in a little bit of a sleep stupor, we headed out right away to the Temple of Debod, an ancient Egyptian temple given to Spain by Egypt as a sign of gratitude for Spain’s help in rescuing other historic temples. The temple sits in a pretty little park that has a great view of the Palacio Real and the outskirts of Madrid. While I found the museum inside the temple to be a little lacking (not a lot of description or context), the temple itself is gorgeous. It sits in front of a reflecting point with two “arches” in the middle of the pond and then the temple itself at the back. I can only imagine how gorgeous it would be at dawn or sunset, but it looked pretty good in the sunshine of the morning as well. We then walked back in the direction of the Palacio Real and wandered through the Sabatini Gardens, which are right next to the palace. The we decided to go into the main cathedral that sits right across from the palace. You enter into the museum, which has some amazing mosaics (I wish I could have taken pictures!) and other treasures relating to the Catholic Church of Spain. Then we climbed to the top of the cupola for some more amazing views of the city. Finally we made our way into the actual church. The Madrid Cathedral is actually very recent – construction finished in the 80s and it was consecrated in 1993. Even though it doesn’t have the long history of other churches I have visited in the past, it was actually one of my favorites. The decoration is spectacular – intricately painted and brightly colored ceilings and enormous stained glass windows that splash prisms of color onto the walls. The architects and decorators seemed to embrace the fact that it is modern and made it into a unique and to me, incredibly beautiful building. After taking approximately a billion pictures of the ceiling, we finally exited to regroup and make a game-plan (which of course included the last of the cookies.) We headed in the direction of the Prado, the biggest and most famous museum in Spain, where we were going to have a tour that afternoon. We came upon the Mercado de San Miguel and decided to get some olives as a snack – some filled with eggplant and some with cornichon and both delicious. It’s very lucky that I have discovered that I in fact like green olives because most tapas restaurants here give you either olives or something resembling lima beans to start and I wouldn’t want to miss out because I still mistakenly thought olives were gross. We meandered over to the Prado, which sits on beautiful grounds with perfectly trimmed grass and some smartly placed trees to provide shade. Let me pause by saying right now that I’m sorry if you’re sick of the word beautiful, I have most definitely overused it in this post and others but with my English rapidly deteriorating, I’m having trouble coming up with good synonyms. Ok back to the Prado - we decided to eat our bocadillos and olives and people watch. It was a great place to do so since the Prado is bustling with people streaming in and out or simply enjoying the atmosphere like us. Soon it was time for our tour with Santiago, an art history professor at one of the universities in Madrid who also happens to have some really cool orange/tortoiseshell glasses. Oh and he was a really good tour guide too! Despite the fact that my feet were aching and I couldn’t stand still for more than a minute without them killing me, I learned a lot about Velazquez, Goya, and some other famous painters in the Prado. It was pretty cool to see all of these paintings in person that we had just learned about in our Spanish culture classes at the center. Normally, as I said before I find it a little cumbersome to have a guide at a museum, but this was perfect since there are far too many pieces of art at the Prado to see all of them in even ten trips, so it was nice to have someone point out the most important ones and explain why they are worth seeing. After the tour we had another quick snack and then explored a few more rooms in the Prado before heading to the Reina Sofia, which houses the modern art collection, including lots of Picasso. I had the brilliant idea that we could walk through the Botanical Gardens to get to the Reina Sofia because on a map the gardens lead right to the museum. We entered and walked around a little, although it is definitely past the prime season for the gardens, since most of the flowers are wilting or nonexistent. We quickly discovered that even though the other end of the gardens is close to the Reina Sofia, there is no exit there so we had to go out the way we came – oh well! Finally we made it to the Reina Sofia and got to see the amazing modern art collection – Picasso, Dali, Miró, and many more famous names grace the walls. At that point our feet were not up for a grand tour, so we hit the highlights, including of course Picasso’s famous “Guernika.” It was pretty incredible to see in person since its large size impressed upon me not only its artistic but historical significance. I was a little distracted by another adorable family (kids are even cuter when you can’t really understand what they’re saying) but still spent a good five minutes just staring at the painting. When we could barely move our feet, we decided it was a good time to head home and actually successfully navigated the metro back to our hotel. After a siesta and good feet soaking (did I mention that my feet killed?) we headed to dinner in the “gayborhood.” It was a really lively area with tons of people just hanging out in the streets so we ended up buying some cheap street food and hanging out as well.

Botanical gardens


Temple of Debod


Ceiling of the cathedral


Stained glass in the cathedral

On Sunday after a quick breakfast (and of course more hidden bocadillos), we again met up with Santiago for a tour of historic Madrid. Even though the tour took us to places we had already went, I actually really enjoyed this reverse order. It was nice to be able to see the monuments or buildings without a guide and make my own judgment before then hearing more about the history and significance. If I had gone on a tour upon arrival in Madrid, I probably would have forgotten everything from it as soon as it ended because of the overwhelming number of buildings and information. However, since I could actually recognize what we were talking about, I think I actually retained some of the information from the tour. We ended up back in the Plaza Mayor and while some people shopped I decided to go get postcards. While on this extremely touristy mission, I was stopped by a Spanish couple who asked me if I was from Madrid (more people think I could possibly be Spanish!) Even though I had to tell them no, I was still able to give them directions to what they were looking for – not bad for three days in a city. After I got back, a few of us headed to El Rastro, a humungous flea market that takes place every Sunday. Flea markets in Europe seem to be a little different from those in the US – a lot more mass produced merchandise and less junk from people’s attics. Although there wasn’t much I wanted to buy, I still had fun wandering and being constantly jostled by the mass of people bargain hunting. We then went to a restaurant, where most people had lunch while Maureen and I looked longingly (we were waiting to have lunch with a mutual friend from Penn who is studying abroad in Madrid). Even though we didn’t eat there we still enjoyed the menu translations – would you rather eat “gluttony with garlic prawns” or “calluses of the house”? We eventually headed back to the hotel where we were meeting said friend, who was coming back from a trip of his own. At 3:40 (our train home left at 5 and we had to be at the station at 4:30) we finally saw met up with our friend! Unfortunately we were too pressed for time to eat lunch so we just walked in the direction of the train station. It was so good to see a familiar face from Penn and catch up but also a little surreal that we were meeting in Madrid instead of West Philly. After too little time, we had to say goodbye and catch a taxi to the train station. When we finally got to our seats (they have assigned seats on all trains here) I had my first bite of the bocadillo I had prepared hours earlier. It was a relief for my stomach to finally have some substantial food and a relief for my body to be sitting down for an extended period of time. After such a busy, exciting, and exhausting weekend, it was great to return home to a delicious meal of Mati’s and my own bed.

Fountain in Parque del Retiro


Topiary in Parque del Retiro


Plaza Mayor

The Arrival of the Internet

Hello all! Sorry I have been a little slow in posting this time around but I’ll try to have some rapid-fire posts to make up for it. So I finally have internet in my house, which is incredible! Mati and Luiqui had mentioned on the first day that we arrived that they had just bought the internet, so Maureen and I were very excited because it is a rarity in homestays to have internet. We waited for the internet for a week, but nothing happened and we started to become concerned that we had misunderstood. Finally, when we were at the point of exploring options of renting internet for three months, Duña and Eduardo, the daughter and son-in-law of Mati and Luiqui, arrived and brought the internet with them! It was quite an exciting day overall because it was also the first day we had lunch by ourselves. Mati and Luiqui went to the countryside and Mati gave instructions to Maureen on how to prepare lunch. We had pasta and the mainstays of gazpacho and melon, but also prepackaged flan, which seemed weird since we usually only have melon as our dessert at lunch. The flan was delicious and we didn’t think anything of it until dinnertime when Mati comes over and asks us, “What happened with the flan?” We said that we ate it and then she responded with a look of consternation, “that was supposed to be for after dinner not lunch!” Maureen and I looked at each other and just had to laugh since something was bound to be lost in translation by this point in time. Maureen explained that she thought Mati had said the flan was for dinner and Mati laughed and said, “well no flan for you tonight, only for Duña and Eduardo!” But of course, she was joking and ended up giving us more flan even though we were pretty stuffed. It was great getting to talk to Eduardo and Duña because they are a lot easier to understand and are a little more relatable since they know more about American culture. Luiqui once told Maureen that California was the poorest state in the US because it only grows potatoes, but Duña and Eduardo watch shows like True Blood and we just seem to have a little more in common with them. They just got back from vacation in the Canaries and then Eduardo left for Zaragoza, where they are going to live, on Tuesday, while Duña will stay here until October and then move to Zaragoza as well. I think Eduardo must be a genius because he works in hotels but somehow figured out how to figure out the problems Maureen and I were having with accessing the internet on our computers (which was very stressful at first because our computers weren’t working and the internet was flaky but now the internet has been working really well and I can’t tell you how amazing that is.) He also speaks 6 languages, including perfect English, which is nice because we could ask him how to say certain words in English and he could tell us the translation. We had a great dinner talking about places they have visited and how it’s hard even for them to understand certain Spanish accents, like in movies from Argentina or even sometimes Spaniards from certain places in the North of Spain. That made me feel a little better about having a little trouble with the strong Sevillano accent. Of course, after dinner we abused the internet a little bit the first night, but I’m trying to not spend too much time just sitting in my room on the computer (unless I’m writing my blog, of course!) because I don’t want to waste all my time here on the internet.


our room

the kitchen - where the magical food happens

the living room

On Monday we visited the Cathedral of Seville, which is in the center of town and is absolutely gorgeous. I had seen it from the outside many times, but since I knew we were going with the program, I hadn’t checked out the interior. Before you even enter the building, there is a patio with rows of orange trees (right now the oranges look like limes but in a little while they will ripen and I have heard that they taste amazing.) You have a great view of La Giralda, the tower that used to be a minaret when the Cathedral was a mosque. It is very common in Spain to have a cathedral on top of a mosque on top of a roman temple since the conquering religion would use the foundation of the previous religion’s holy building to build their own. We were given a tour by one of the program staff, Pepe. He explained about the history of the building and different aspects of the architecture and art inside of the Cathedral. The interior is ridiculous – it is so ornate and large (actually the third largest church in the world.) There is tons of marble, stained glass, and carved wood and you can’t possibly take in half of what there is to see in one visit. There are two organs inside and they are making a third organ in the Netherlands. There is also a central chapel that houses the tombs of three kings of Spain, but can only be entered for mass. Allegedly Christopher Columbus’s remains are also in the Cathedral – there is a huge box that holds bones that were scientifically tested and definitely belong to someone in Christopher Columbus’s family but Pepe seems to think that they are not actually Columbus’s bones and I would agree with him. There are also tons of small chapels around the edge of the central room that were paid for by nobles and house some amazing artwork. They have a fairly large “custodia” – the place where they hold the bread for Communion – that is decorated in ornate silver and tons of other treasure in the side rooms. Pepe told us about some special masses that are held in the Cathedral throughout the year, including one in November where the army comes, and I definitely think I’ll check out some sort of mass during the semester. After the tour, we could stay in the building and we decided to climb to the top of the Giralda. The tower only has ramps because when it was a minaret the muezzin would have to climb it five times a day for the call to prayer so he would ride up on a donkey. I can’t decide whether it is easier to walk up ramps or stairs, but either way, after 34 ramps my legs were feeling the burn. It was definitely worth the walk though because the views from the top were spectacular! You could see so far out onto Seville and see some of the landmarks, such as the Plaza de España and the Jardines de Maria Luisa, as well as a great view of the nearby barrio Santa Cruz – the touristy but adorable old neighborhood. After a while the view could no longer distract us from our grumbling stomachs and we returned home for a lunch of “arroz con carne” (rice with meat) which is what they call paella here and a lot more authentic than what they serve in restaurants here that advertise “we have paella” (wonder what clientele they’re trying to attract…) which was of course delicious. For dinner (yup, skipping right to the next meal!) Maureen and I had pizza, which Mati makes using a store bought crust and some sort of yummy cheese, tomato sauce, and chorizo. It tastes very different from pizza in the US more actually like this Armenian type of pizza (I don’t know how to spell the name so I won’t try) we used to eat at home because it has lots of herbs. It was really interesting because Mati, Luiqui, Eduardo, and Duña all had dinner together because Eduardo was leaving the next day, which means it is a special dinner because usually Mati doesn’t eat and Luiqui has something very small for dinner and it’s not really a “sitdown meal.” But even though it was a special dinner, the TV was still on and they half-watched and half-talked. I can’t imagine having a goodbye dinner with the TV on, but to them it’s normal.


outside of the Cathedral

La Giralda

Bells in la Giralda

On Wednesday, we went to the Museum of Fine Arts and had another tour with Pepe. Even though Pepe does a great job of explaining the art and history, I don’t love taking tours in museums because I prefer to look at art at my own pace – some pieces we pass by I would like to look at for longer and others that we spend a lot of time at I could walk right by. The building and grounds are beautiful, but the time period of most of the art in the building is not my favorite. I like modern art a lot better and the majority of the work in this museum is from the 15th to 19th centuries. It is still definitely interesting to see, but just not my style. After the tour we decided to take the bus for the first time because we were pretty far away from our house. It took a while to find the bus stop, but after that it was an uneventful ride – Seville definitely has public transportation down. They have a brand new metro that I haven’t taken yet, a really good bus system, and an awesome bike share program (more on that later.) For lunch we had a stew of potatoes and calamari. Squid is not my favorite, so I sort of ate around the squid, since the rest was delicious, but I don’t think Mati was very happy with the fact that I didn’t eat the squid. She made fun of me for saying at first that I like everything even though now I don’t like tuna or squid. Maureen ended up eating my calamari since she liked it a lot, which is good since Mati once said that she is scared of throwing out food. Mati has the most interesting sense of humor – it’s very dry and deadpan and very difficult to tell if she is joking or not. She told us that some of her previous students told the program director that they didn’t like her jokes because they are mean but I love her sense of humor. When Maureen and I were sitting in the living on Sunday enjoying the first minutes of wifi (pronounced wee-fee here, by the way) Mati walked by and rubbed her thumb and fingers together in the sign for money and asked us, “when are you going to pay?” At first I was a little worried because I couldn’t tell if she was kidding, but then she smiled and we all laughed. On Thursday, Maureen and I had our first bocadillo (sandwich) from Mati instead of going home for lunch because we had thought we were going on a long tour and wouldn’t be able to make it back in time. Even though the sandwich was still good (chorizo and cheese) it was sad to miss out on an amazing Mati lunch, especially since it turned out that the tour was really short and we would have made it home with plenty of time. I put the time to good use trying to find classes to take at the university (which is a lot harder than at Penn) and also investigating taking an art class while I’m here. Turns out that there are only art schools not art centers for people like me who just want to do art as a hobby. The place I was going to take a class has a test to get into the classes, which also happened to be at the same time as my class at the program center, so I couldn’t end up doing it (not that I was in love with the idea of taking a test for an art class anyway). I’ll certainly find something else to keep myself busy but it would have been interesting to take printmaking in Spanish. That night we decided to go to a movie at the outdoor movie theater near our house. They were playing Burn after Reading (Quemar despues de Leer in Spanish) dubbed into Spanish. I had never seen it before, so it was a little difficult to follow the details of the dialogue since the mouths don’t match the audio, but I still got the gist of the plot and found Brad Pitt as a personal trainer pretty ridiculous. It was sort of like a drive-in movie theater except everyone was seated in rows of lawn chairs instead of cars and a few cats walked by during the movie. Not the most comfortable after two hours, but definitely fun and worth doing once.

organ in the Cathedral

ceiling in the Museum of Fine Arts

Cádiz and Meandering Sevilla

The second week here has flown by. Let me start by making two corrections to my last post. To clarify, Corte Ingles is definitely a step up from Wal Mart but is similar to the superstore in that it has everything you could ever want (thanks Deb!). Also, I have realized that the river in Seville is more green than blue and certainly not swimmable but pretty nonetheless. And now back to week 2. On Monday, we again had to hide the peaches in our closet, but don’t fear, we ate them before they went bad. I hope this peach thing doesn’t become a theme of the trip because it is a little awkward to have to worry about rotting fruit in your closet. On the way to class, someone asked us for directions to the nearest Vodaphone (a cellphone company) store and we could actually answer. I was pretty impressed with myself by the fact that I could understand and answer in Spanish and also that I knew at least one part of the city well enough to give directions. Although I’m still definitely a tourist, the ability to give directions definitely boosted my confidence a little. After a day of classes and another delicious lunch of green beans that looked like pasta and pork with a special sauce made by Mati and Luiqui’s daughter, Maureen and I decided to do some errands. On our way to do the errands, however, we got a little sidetracked and ended up exploring a new part of the city. To me, spontaneous detours are always the most fun and this one turned into a perfect afternoon. We walked through the older and more touristy part of Seville that we had yet to visit. The streets are filled with old churches and entryways to adorable apartments. All of the buildings seem to have intricate window panelling and windowboxes with brightly colored flowers. Every street has another breathtaking view. Before this exploration, I thought Seville was a beautiful city but not exactly “the most gorgeous city in the world” – a descriptions I had heard before arriving. After our meandering, I definitely know what people are talking about. Seriously, every five minutes I would break out another ooh or ahh at some building or plaza. Then we found the Murillo gardens, which had not only a spectacular display of foliage for a city in drought but also gorgeous fountains and statues. I think reverie is the right word to describe it. Maureen and I sat on a bench next to a fountain and watched as doves and parakeets, yes parakeets, flew by and dogs cooled off in the fountain. We eventually pulled ourselves away from the gardens and wandered our way over to the central building of the University of Seville, where most if not all of my classes will be held. Penn has a beautiful campus, but it can’t hold a candle to this building. It was an old tobacco factory and it looks like a museum/castle. There is a moat – not filled with water anymore but still a moat! – and inside there are statues and a fountain in a courtyard. Also, we walked into a room directly inside the main entrance that held lots of ornate artifacts that belong to the brotherhood of students that march during the holy week festival, Semana Santa, that is held in the spring in Seville. At this point the sun was setting and we returned home for dinner and homework before going to sleep.

Murillo Gardens

one of the many churches in Seville

On Tuesday, we finally did some of the errands that we luckily didn’t around to the day before. One of the errands was going to the post office to mail in an application to the bike share program that is very prevalent is Seville. The post office was very different from most in the US. First of all it was a beautiful old building but it also required that you take a number upon entry and wait to go up to the counter until your number is called instead of having to stand in an obnoxiously long line. It reminded me a little of the DMV but much less chaotic and more efficient – definitely something that some of the post offices I have been to could learn from. For lunch, we had probably my second favorite dish so far. Let me pause by saying first of all that I’m sorry if you’re sick of hearing about food, if you can’t tell I’m a little obsessed and tend to remember every detail of my meals. Also, I don’t think I mentioned my favorite meal since it was the day of my last post. It was a puree of squash and potatoes that was sinfully rich and delicious along with tender chicken and caramelized onions. SO GOOD! Back to Tuesday’s meal, which had cooked chickpeas and spinach in garlic and olive oil. I absolutely love chickpeas, so this was a great new way to eat one of my favorite foods. In the afternoon, we wandered a little through the center of the city and came across a bagpiper playing in one of the plazas – pretty surprising since we’re not in Scotland but still fun to listen to. We also had a little merienda (snack) of ice cream at a store that happened to be selling “pitufo” or “Smurf” flavored ice cream that was bright blue. We tried a spoonful just because and it was well… as one friend put it “that definitely does not grow on trees.” On the way home we gave directions again (in no time we’ll be tour guides), which is pretty unbelievable considering I still don’t know how to get home except for the one route we take from the program center. Hopefully the person made it to her destination without having to ask again.

Cute little street

University of Seville

On Wednesday we took a doubledecker bus tour of Seville. The audio guide was difficult to hear and not synced properly so I gave up after a while, but it was still nice to see more of the city and the view from the top of the doubledecker bus is nice. We passed through some parts of the city that I had never seen before such as the science park, la Isla Mágica, which is an amusement park, and Triana, the neighborhood across the river which has lots of old tiles on the building and cute shops that seem worth exploring some more. Then we came back for another yummy meal of meatballs and rice with tomato sauce. On a side note, I failed to mention last time the problems with pronunciation of names. Spaniards have a little trouble with Rachel because it doesn’t sound very natural in their language. I decided to introduce myself to Mati and Luiqui as Raquel because I knew that would be a lot easier for them. It turned out to be a great idea because they have such problems with the name Maureen that I know mine wouldn’t have been easy either. The first day Mati tried to repeat Maureen’s name about ten times and came up with everything from Maureek to Muli. Maureen said that Mati could just call her Momo instead, but Mati told her that Momo means boogeyman in Spanish, so that wouldn’t work. By now they have settled on Muri, but they still forget both of our names every once and a while. And while I’m on a non sequitor, I think I’ll jump to my next random story, which is about the Spanish sense of humor. Our culture professor told us that Spaniards have a very dry sense of humor and love irony. Well I’m not sure if this falls into that description, but I mentioned last time about how Maureen and I couldn’t finish the food and told Mati, “no somos vacas” (we’re not cows). Well now that is Mati’s favorite phrase and she cracks a joke about how someone is or isn’t a cow based on their eating habits probably every other day. It’s really cute and makes it feel like we’re fitting in because Mati feels comfortably joking with us (and comfortable calling us cows!)

rainbow in the fountain


Maureen and I in the Plaza de España

Our program center is right across from this 13^th century tower on the river, so on Thursday Maureen and I went to visit the museum inside the Torre del Oro (tower of gold). While the museum itself wasn’t my favorite since it didn’t have detailed descriptions of most of the objects and the audio guide was completely cheesy, the view from the top of the tower was spectacular. You can see far along the river in both directions and the city’s skyline, which is unfortunately marred by a crane from one of the many construction projects in the city. During lunch, Mati wasn’t feeling great so she didn’t eat with us so it was just Luiqui, Maureen, and I. It was fine until we finished eating but Luiqui had most certainly not finished talking. He has a tendency to start off with a little anecdote that sends him on a very long rambling monologue. It’s great to hear more Spanish and hear some stories, but after a certain point we wanted to be excused to do the homework for our class later in the afternoon and get in a short siesta. Usually Mati will cut Luiqui off if he is talking for too long but since she wasn’t there we had to wait until there was a break in the speech so that we could tell him that we had homework to do and retreat to our room. After grammar class, we decided to explore the Plaza de España, which we had seen from afar on the bus tour. We meandered through the gardens that lead to the plaza and found more spectacular greenery and water displays. There was also a white duck with a fluffy yellow duckling sitting underneath its stomach. We stopped to buy frozen lemonade before going into the incredible plaza. It has a huge fountain in the middle and a large pavillion made of pink bricks and decorated with ornate tiles. There are bridges over a now dry stream and panels representing different parts of Spain. After the plaza, we walked to the adjacent gardens, which are even bigger than the gardens from Monday. There are small little “plazas” throughout these gardens that have fountains and statues and benches. There is also a small bird sanctuary in the gardens with different types of birds including a female peacock! After spending some time in the gardens, we continued on to another plaza which contains two museums. First we saw the Archaeology Music, and since I’m an anthropology major/huge nerd, I had to take a picture in front of the Archaeolgoy Museum. There is also an art museum across from it that is decorated in the mudejar style, which we have learned about in our culture class at the center. I definitely plan to go back and visit both museums, but by that time we were running out of steam and decided to head home.

soy un nerd - museo arqueologico


view from el Torre del Oro

el Torre del Oro

On Friday we had our first group trip, which was to Cádiz, a beach town about an hour and a half away from Spain. Just in case you didn’t get that, this a school sponsored trip to the beach!!! Being a school trip, it wasn’t actually just a day at the beach, we actually did some educational things as well. First we went on a guided tour of the city. We saw the old neighborhood, which has walls that date back to the 13^th century. We also saw the Roman Theater, which is actually built quite similarly to stadiums today with an underground tunnel for food, just like the concession stands in Fenway Park or Franklin Field. The theater is right next to some apartment buildings where people actually live today and they can’t continue excavating because they don’t want to destroy people’s homes. I can’t possibly imagine waking up to an ancient monument like that everyday – those people are pretty lucky! After that, we visited the Cathedral of Cadiz. When we first entered, there were nuns sitting in the pews, which seemed very fitting. We went to the crypt, where there are some famous artists buried and also a mummified saint. There is also a huge organ and tons of other artefacts and works of art that we just barely touched upon during our tour. We headed down the main street of Cádiz, which is a lot smaller than Seville in case you’re wondering, which has tons of old buildings and amazing houses with balconies. Our next stop was an old house built and decorated in Islamic style. It was very ornate, with tons of tiling and carved pillars, and a fountain in the middle. After that, we went through a plaza with more churches and then ended our tour in front of a tower called el Torre Tavina. After saying goodbye to our guide, we went up the tower. The stairs were winding and small to say the least, but everyone made it up in one piece. Before reaching the very top, we entered a dark room which contains a really cool kind of machine that I had never seen before. Basically, there is a screen in the middle and above the screen in a tower are mirrors and lenses that when combined in the right configuration project the view of what is actually going on in the city at that moment. It’s like an old-school spy camera. We got a 360 degree tour of the city from the bird’s eye view of this “camera” and could even see people hanging up their laundry on buildings nearby or the movement of the waves all the way out in the ocean. It was a really cool way to see the city and unlike anything I had seen. After the “tour,” we climbed the rest of the way to the top and saw some amazing views of the city. The bright blue of the sky and the ocean was dazzling. After all of the walking/climbing of tiny staircases, we wanted to rest. Even though the trip to Cádiz was only technically a day trip, almost everyone on the program had been planning on staying the night once they told us there was a beach. One of the girls had found a hostel but wasn’t sure if there was enough room for everyone who wanted to stay there. After a little bit of confusion and some things lost in translation with the owner of the hostel, we all got rooms and decided to find some food. Since Cádiz is on the water and known for its fried fish, I went with some friends to a restaurant and ordered two different kinds of fish. We weren’t exactly sure what kinds they were but one was in this spicy sauce and was absolutely delicious. After that, it was time for the beach! The beach in Cádiz is absolutely gorgeous – the sand is soft (although scorching), the water is bright blue, and for the two days I was there, the sky was clear blue as well. Also, you can see the amazing Cathedral from the beach. It’s pretty incredible to be sitting on the sand, listening to the sound of the waves, and then look to your right and see this beautiful, old building. Some of you might not know about my obsession with Martha’s Vineyard and its beaches (it’s my favorite place on Earth) well Cádiz’s beaches are a close second. After a swim in the ocean and plenty of time to dry off and tan, we decided to head back to the hostel to clean up before dinner. Of course, after a difficult day at the beach, we were a little hungry so we decided to stop at a bakery for a snack. I haven’t noticed very many bakeries in Seville, which is good for my waistline but a little sad for my tastebuds, so it was nice to see pastries again. We all got glasses of water that we downed in 5 seconds flat and I ordered a delicious, rich apple flaky crusted pastry that I also devoured. After returning to the hostel and rejuvenating, we headed out a few hours later to find a place for dinner. Our hostel was located in the center of the city, so it didn’t take long to find a crowded place that actually seemed to have locals. At first we sat down at one restaurant and after waiting a while for a waiter, my friend got up to get a menu herself. That quickly got the attention of a waiter who told us we were sitting in the wrong place for the menu we had just taken (all of the outdoor tables around these restaurants were close together.) We realized that the restaurant we wanted to eat at was full, but decided to put our name on the list because it seemed good. Even though it was nearing 11 by the time we were actually seated, I was miraculously not starving. We got a few tapas – aioli potatoes and different sandwiches with ham, salmon, and cod, that were all really good and surprisingly filling for their small size. After dinner, we wandered the streets for a while and got pretty lost but made it back to our hotel exhausted and in one piece.

Roman Theater - just like Fenway of course


inside of the Cathedral

Calle Sacramento - main drag of Cádiz

On Saturday we got a quick breakfast and then headed right back to the beach. We walked a little farther along to a different beach, but it still had the same amazing water, sand, and view. The water is also the perfect temperature there – refreshingly cold but not so cold that it hurts your body when you get in. I could probably spend the whole day in the ocean if given the chance. When we first got to the beach it was “early” (11) and there weren’t too many people there. By 1, the beach was packed and tons of vendors were walking up and down trying to sell cold drinks or snacks. One was selling potato chips, which didn’t make too much sense to me since there is already enough salt at the beach, but another was selling Tinto Verano, which is a mixture of red wine, lemonade, and seltzer which is absolutely delicious and sounded like an amazing idea for the beach. We didn’t end up buying anything, but I find it kind of funny to have so many vendors on the beach. It makes sense for them but I would prefer to have my beach experience free from shouts of “cerveza, agua fria, y tinto veranoooooo.” Still, the vendors did not stop me from enjoying one second of our time at the ocean nor from taking a nice little siesta. I guess I paid for that later in the form of a bright red back, but it was worth the relaxation it provided at the time. After about 5 hours on the beach, we were a little overheated and reluctantly said goodbye and headed back to the town center. Our tour guide had mentioned a fruit market that was close to one of the plazas and we wanted to check it out and get some snacks for the train ride home. Have I mentioned the fruit here is so sweet and the melon is at least twenty times better than melon in the States? Unforntunately, we found out that the market had just closed a few days ago for vacation, but we still managed to find a little bite to eat and a few shops to explore before heading to the train station. After some initial confusion over the location of the entrance, we found the train leaving for Seville and had a comfortable ride home. The first thing I did when I got home was take a shower and then it was time for dinner. We had our first real homemade dessert (we usually have fruit), which was a delicious custard that tasted similar to flan. After dinner, I went out with a friend and returned home later exhausted but extremely content with the memories of a perfect beach trip.

view of the city from Torre Tavina

la playa - difficult to see the Cathedral from this shot but I promise it's there