Wave Your Flag

Friday, April 28th - Tuesday, May 8th

This post is probably going to be very long, but I would implore you to read it, at least about Morocco, because this stuff is so very important and so informative that I think its worth the time. If you read nothing else, just read about Morocco and my experience there, specifically Sunday, April 29th and/or Monday April 30th.

Here we go again, but for one of the last times. 

So this post is primarily about my past two trips I went on during our “second spring break” we had due to two work holidays in Madrid that conveniently fell on the only two days I have class, Monday and Tuesday. What did I do with my second spring break? I went to Morocco in Northern Africa, and Mallorca, one of Spain’s Balearic Islands. 

I’ll start with Morocco

Morocco: Friday, April 27th - Tuesday, May 1st

So we have had this trip planned to Morocco for some time, months really. Just a few weeks after arriving in Spain we had a presentation from a company named Morocco Exchange about their trips they run for students to Morocco. The trip seemed great, and BC even offers to cover half the cost because they think its that great, and it was. 

So, the trip was 3 nights and 4 days. The basis of the trip was a cultural exchange experience in which we would get to experience a culture completely different of our own- a Muslim nation in Northern Africa. The idea was to be exposed to this culture, its people, their religion, and for both of us to gain a better understanding of one another. The experience was unforgettable.

Friday, April 28th - Saturday, April 29th

Our journey started with a bus ride down to southern Spain to the port of Tarifa. For those of you who dont know where Morocco is, it is right across the Strait of Gibraltar on the African continent, 9 miles from the most southern European mainland point of Spain. We met our guide, Allen, in Madrid and got our bus at 10PM for an 8 hour overnight ride to the port of Tarifa. Allen was accompanied by a special guest who I will quickly tell you about.

When Allen emailed our group a few days before our departure I took a look at who got the email to see who from BC was in my group. It was here that I noticed a recipients name, Blaire Modic. I only know one person in the world with that name, and he was a Spanish teacher at my high school in Florida, Saint Andrew’s. I emailed Allen and asked if this Blaire Modic happened to be a American school teacher. Allen emailed me back and confirmed that it was the person I was thinking of, and that he would be coming along with our group as a guide in training as he had recently taken a job with Morocco Exchange. My mind was blown, what a small world. I would have never thought I would have been reunited with this guy so many years later, and in Europe/Africa of all places. Blaire was indeed there with us on the bus, and Blaire and I caught up on each other’s lives. Blaire recently left my high school and moved to Holland with his wife whom he had just married this past year. He then got a job with Morocco Exchange and lived in Morocco for 3 months studying Arabic intensively. Now Blair is on his training trip with us to become a full-time guide. Incredible.

So we loaded up on the bus and made the long trip down to Tarifa. We got to Tarifa at about 6:30 in the morning, and we had a ferry at 8 across the Strait of Gibraltar. We got on the ferry and made our way across the Strait. It was raining, not the nicest weather, and the boat ride was pretty rough, tons of little kids started puking all over, I love the feeling of a rocking ship though, I have no clue why. Crossing the Strait was such a crazy feeling; to picture ourselves on a map and think about where we were and where we were going. Soon enough we could see the African mainland on the horizon, and we pulled into Tangier, a main city and port in Northern Morocco. I was in Africa, for the second time in a month. I was in Tunisia over my spring break on the cruise my mom and I went on. It was so cool to be back, and to be in another crazy place that I knew so little about. On the boat we went through Moroccan customs and they stamped our passports and we exited the ferry onto the port’s docks to get on our bus that would largely be our home for our group of 16 for the next 4 days. 

We got on our bus which fit all of us perfectly, there was one seat empty on the entire bus. Our driver was a really nice Moroccan guy, he didnt speak English, but we learned how to say hello and thank you in Arabic. 

I should stop here and give a short, short, short history and overview of Morocco in general. 

So like I said, Morocco is a country in Northern Africa. Northern Africa is predominantly Muslim/Arab in religion/culture. There arent many black people as you picture “Africa” in your head, this is Northern Africa, and the Sahara Desert to the south forms a natural land barrier between Sub-Saharan Africa and Northern Africa. Morocco is 98% Muslim and is a monarchy. The current King’s name is Mohammed VI and is 47 years old, the people for the most part like him, and he is a pretty progressive guy in the grand scheme of things. Morocco had its fair share of problems during the Arab Spring, but they were not on the full scale of revolution like other countries in Northern Africa such as Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt. The population is around 30 million with nearly half of that population being under the age of 19. Morocco is a generally progressive nation, religiously tolerant, and tolerant toward women in the grand scheme of Muslim/Arab culture, especially in the cities. The main language of Morocco is Arabic, but French is also widely used since the country was a French colony until it gained its independence in 1956. Its more so the educated now who speak French. The country is about 50/50 in terms of indigenous population and Arab descendants. The indigenous are termed “Berbers” in Western lingo, here they are known as Amazigh, and they have their own language which is mostly spoken in the rural areas; the mountains and the southern regions of the country. That should do it for a brief overview.

When we got into our bus we made a short ride into the main city if Tangier where we got out of the bus and walked around the Medina market area to pick up some supplies we would need; we had a snack bag for the bus that Allen filled everyday, and we constantly had to buy bottled water. The water in Morocco is ok to drink if your Moroccan and grew up on it, but for most westerners its going to give you quite the upset stomach and undesirable effects. We walked around the Medina for a bit which was similar to the markets I saw in Tunisia and still crazy. Just everything you could think of for your house in terms of food commodities were strung out all over the place. I watched a butcher take goat heads, full goat heads, eyes and all, and watched as he cut out the brains from the skull. They had full dead pigs hanging by their hoofs for purchase, fish, chickens, everything. They had spices, vegetables, everything you could need. We walked around and made our way to our first stop of the day, a woman’s center, which would be where we would meet up with some Moroccan kids our age to have a dialogue on Moroccan culture and lifestyle.

Ill talk about Tangier just for a second because its important to know that Tangier is not like the rest of Morocco. Tangier is very much a city-city. It is a little less conservative than the average Moroccan would find life to be for themselves, and the city is also very industrialized. The King recently has put in tons of capital to the city and given tax breaks to corporations trying to get companies to build factories in Tangier in order to employ Moroccan workers. So the city is a big mix of people from all over the country and the world, but it is Moroccan in its own right.

So we got to the women’s center where we met with 3 Moroccan students our age to sit down and talk over lunch. We talked for a couple hours about everything really. Mostly about the lifestyle they live as Moroccans, and as Muslims. It was heavy stuff, but this was sort of our introduction and easing into Morocco, since the following days would be a bit more heavy. There were 2 girls and 1 guy we talked to. We found how incredible similar we were. Music, movies, boyfriends and girlfriends, they’re just like us, and so many people tend to forget that about the rest of the world outside of their bubble. We talked about the difference in culture and how for instance girls are generally not supposed to have boyfriends, but some do and they hide that fact from their parents. One of the girls wore a headdress, the other did not, and we asked why one would choose not to and why one would choose to. The headdress you see most Muslim women where is known as a hijab. The hijab is a choice by women to wear, but most choose to wear it. The hijab is worn out of modesty to cover their heads and the hijab idea follows along a lot of the time with long floor length blouse type things. This is all out of modesty to Allah and for their families. The interpretation of wearing hijab though is on an individual basis. One of the girls who did not wear it for instance- her mother wears it, one of her sisters wear it, but she and her other sister do not. Its not all set in stone like we think, there is a lot of interpretation in Islam that people choose freely for themselves. We talked a lot about women’s rights in Morocco as well given the fact we were at a women’s center that focussed on teaching women trade skills to bring into a job market. Women’s rights in Morocco have come a long way, and women are seen as prized items, but they are also loved. Marriage in Morocco is a well-respected institution and very few women consider their lives complete without it. Marriage can be by choice and or “arranged” in a way. Marriage is like a business decision, and many fathers negotiate/exchange money or property still for the unions of marriage. The man is the head of the household in Muslim tradition and law and many things the wife wants to do must go through the husband first for permission. At the same time though, divorce is possible in Morocco, much more so than it was years ago. Years ago if you wanted a divorce you had to apply for one and wait forever as a way to deter people from doing so, now though its much more fluid of a process and people can be divorced rather quickly and easily, but divorce is still frowned upon in many ways from a cultural standpoint. 

We had a great lunch at the women’s center and a nice not too heavy introduction to this new world we were entering. From here on out things were going to get much much much more real in terms of Morocco and Africa as we left the mild Tangier and headed further south into the country. 

We loaded up on the busses and headed down the Atlantic coast of Morocco. The coast line is beautiful, and the beaches are pretty big. It was still sort of crummy out, little windy, but all in all nice. We actually stopped on the side of the road and Allen had arranged for us to do a short camel ride on the beach with a guy who had some camels he knew of in the area. So we did that. Camels I have to tell you are some of the funniest animals to be around. They just look so uncooperative and always have this look on their face of “I dont want to carry you”. Theyre smelly creatures, but fun to ride. It was my first time riding a camel, but hopefully not my last, it was a cool time. 

After the short camel ride we went to a small town named Asilah on the coast. Asilah is a beautiful town that has been bought up by rich French and Spanish and they have revamped the homes there for weekend retreats or summer homes by the beach since Morocco is so close. We spent some time just walking around Asilah and seeing the beautiful homes that have been renovated from their original Moroccan owner status before the people of the town could no longer afford to live there. 

After seeing Asilah we got back in the bus for a long bus ride down further south to Rabat, the capital city of Morocco, where we would be staying for the next 2 nights. This is where things first start to get real for us in Morocco since what we are doing in Morocco is about cultural exchange, we are to be put in homestays for the weekend with Moroccan families; living amongst them. We got down to Rabat in the early evening and went into a Moroccan family’s house where a Moroccan man met us to be the middle man between us and the families who had volunteered to take us in. John and I were paired together and in walked a woman in full hijab headdress and blouse. Her name was Jo-Jo for our purposes, and she would be our host mom for the next 2 nights.

JoJo lived about 10 minutes walk from the meeting house that would serve as our meeting point for the next couple days. I cant even begin to tell you how much of a different world I felt like I stepped into when we started walking through the streets of Rabat’s residential area going to JoJo’s house. The streets were all pedestrian, narrow, with white buildings and beautiful small wooden doors to homes and small businesses. It was a huge maze of turns that I didnt think I would ever remember for the sake of getting around. We walked through the maze of streets and came to JoJo’s house. We walked around the back of the building, through her door, up the stairs and into her home. JoJo lived in a beautiful, flat, I guess I would call it. I really cant even begin o describe how the typical Moroccan household is laid out. In essence though there was a living room that had a small wooden table for dining, a kitchen, and each person of the family had their own room and there was a guest room where we were staying. The guest room was two couches, but couches arent like couches youre used to. They are hard and low seated narrow cushions. It would suffice though, and we were so tired we didnt even notice. We immediately were introduced to JoJo’s mother or mother in law, we never really got that straight. In Morocco people tend to live with their entire family; grandparents if alive and down. The family is an integral part of life in Morocco and they all live together forever pretty much until marriage splits people up and brings news people in. The women generally move into the man’s family’s house of whom they marry. JoJo’s mother was a nice little woman, she didnt speak any english or spanish, so we didnt really talk. The hilarious part of this was sitting in the grandmothers room when we first got there. JoJo went to start making dinner for us and we sat with grandma as she watched the TV. She was wathing what I can best describe as African MTV. It was two black rappers from Cameroon rapping in French. She was fixed on it watching them rap….I asked her in French if she spoke French, its the only thing I know how to say other than hello and thank you. She said no, so I have no idea what she was doing watching Cameroon rappers. It was hilarious though and John and I had to fight back our laughter as we occasionally looked at one other wondering what the hell was going on. 

JoJo lives with her mother and 2 brothers. Her husband by some crazy coincidence lives in Pittsburgh….we never got that story either really, and I dont know if they have children. When she told us he worked in Pittsburgh we were very confused and didnt really know how to ask what he was doing there and why she was here. So we kind of just went along with it. JoJo teaches english at the international school in Rabat, but by no means should she be teaching anyone english. Dont get me wrong, we were able to converse, and all her vocabulary is there, it just doesnt make sense. We would ask a question, for instance, about Henna tattoos and their cultural significance. JoJo would reply “mmmm they last about 4 weeks usually”….she was a real card, we really had to make things clear to get the right answers. She was a sweetheart though and really loved us there. She constantly referred to us as her “brothers” everything was “yes my brothers” “please my brothers, eat more”. It was really something else. 

Before dinner we had some typical Moroccan tea and pastries. I have to say I am no tea or coffee drinker, but I fell on love with tea in Morocco. The tea there is the greatest thing. They bring it out in these traditional silverware pots. Its green tea with mint leaves and special herbs. Its so delicious, but loaded with sugar and caffeine. We sipped on that before dinner. Dinner was couscous, a Moroccan staple meal. In Morocco meals are generally family style. They cook one huge plate that rests in the middle of the table. Couscous is eaten with your hands, and the meat is in the center underneath the couscous. Meat is a expensive commodity, and guests are usually given the meat, you dont generally take it for yourself, you get it served to you. Like I said this meal is generally eaten with your hands and served by hand. Which brings me to a HUGE point in Muslim/Arab culture. 

In Muslim/Arab culture the left hand is generally used to clean oneself after using the bathroom. In Morocco a lot of homes dont use toilet paper, instead they just use their hand, their left hand, and then “clean” it afterwards. For this reason the left hand is considered dirty, and its not used for anything really. People dont wave with their left hand, and they should definitely avoid touching people with their left hand or eating with it or touching communal food. JoJo decided to use spoons for this couscous meal which I cant say I was upset about. However when she would shovel more onto our plate she would use the spoon she was using to eat, which was sort of gross, but you just accept it. Moroccan hospitality is second to none, and I mean that. They dont stop with the food, they will stuff you till you explode. Its hard to say no, and the food is delicious. The grandmother kept motioning for us to eat every spec on our plate, and I had to cut JoJo off from giving me more, it was jut getting to be too much. We talked at the table about some Moroccan things like food etc, very basic stuff but really just eye opening into such a different world. After dinner John and I were so wiped we headed to bed. Since leaving Madrid at 10PM on friday and hardly sleeping on the bus we were so ready to crash, so we did. We would wake up at around 9 to meet the rest of the group in the morning to start our day. The next two days would be diving deeper and deeper into Morocco and this cultural experience.

Sunday, April 30th

I’ll start off by just giving you a some food for thought about this trip as a whole: I have been on a lot of trips in my life, especially academic ones that were meant to be cross-cultural. But I have to say right here and now that this trip was unlike anything else I have ever experienced. Morocco is a land where so much is left up in the air, much like the whole of Africa in general. Morocco Exchange was founded by Allen’s best friend Art, and the two of them started this company basicaly by coming down to Morocco on their own and making friends. Literally everything they have come to create for this program was born out of them making connections, nothing more. There are no contracts, there are no set things in stone, its literally this company and its will connected guides bringing students down to Morocco to meet and talk with people they have come to know and respect and vice-versa. These Moroccans want to meet Americans and share these experiences just as much as we do, and that the basis of this trip. Allen has connections from over a decade of coming down here and setting up these relationships so he can get students out of their comfort zone to see and experience a world they would usually never see. With this said, the structure of the trip is so open and up in the air. You never know what can happen, and thats a beauty of it. Allen has set up meetings and things for us, but these people who come to meet us are either doing this completely voluntarily out of their own curiosity, or Allen has made arrangements with people and villages to give them things they need in order to make his own agenda of exposing students to this world be pushed through, ill get to more about this later. All in all though, this trip is so off the books I cant even tell you. We were in Africa pretty much with a guy who is well connected, and were in a bus going places he knows where we will see things we would never see on our own if we came to Morocco and just stayed in Tangier. 

Everyone met up as a group to start our day after breakfast with our host families. Our plan today, again it was raining, was to visit a local school that specifically was created to help Moroccans teach each other, especially youth from shanty-towns, which I will explain in a second. We met up with 3 Moroccan guys, 1 a bit younger than us, 2 a bit older pHD students who were well educated. We met the 3 of them at this school where we would have a couple hours of intense, and I mean intense conversations about our cultures, our lifestyles, and the world. 

We drove outside of Rabat to this town named Sale just across the river of the city. We picked up the younger Moroccan guy who had just gotten off of work at some night job he just got. He was a shaggy looking kid, but with a heart of gold. He volunteers at the school we were hanging around in this morning, and he would be one of our confidants for our talks. As we made our way over to the school we stopped in front of a enclosed area we learned is a “shanty-town”. A shanty town is where pretty much all the poor people from the city live. If you have ever seen the movie district 9, its sort of like that. Literally it is a huge piece of land with tiny homes made of whatever material can be found; cardboard boxes, cinderblocks, palm tree branches, things like that. The “houses” are jammed up against each other, and you cant believe anyone lives here. We stopped in front of one and the kid started to explain the shantytown to us. Like I said, its where the poor live, and the government for a long time tried to hide these places with big walls, the walls have been torn down sort of over the years in social efforts to expose the horrors of these communities and for the government to do something about them. The shantytowns are where the poor families live, and when I say families you could have 10 people living in a place the size of you or I’s bedroom. There are no toilets, no running water, no electricity, nothing. The shantytown is a living hell, but its where these people live. We were silent listening to him speak and looking our the window, you couldnt believe people lived here. The Moroccan and Allen went on to explain something to us that startled us Americans; these shantytowns are where terrorism breeds and festers. That’s right. Apparently, these types of places are where Al-Qaeda will come in and start talking to people. Telling them there is a better life for their family that awaits them, and that Allah wants them to serve etc. They put into the mind of these poor people that if they die in the name of Islam for Allah that they will be rewarded, and consequently Al-Qaeda will provide for their families if they join their ranks and commit to missions like suicide attacks. To some, Allen said, this doesn’t seem like a bad option; you get our of the shantytown for a while, you “serve” God they make you believe, you achieve salvation by killing yourself, and its promised to you that your family gets taken care of for the rest of their lives and can leave the shantytown. Absolutely incredible, and so scary. Because people live oppressed like this and in poverty they become the victims of terrorist organizations plots against humanity. This is a huge reason the government is trying to do more and more to eradicate these types of places existence, and likewise Moroccans are trying to help themselves break these cycles by building schools like the one we were to visit.

After the shantytown stop we made our way to the school where we would talk with the 3 Moroccans for the rest of the morning. The school we were at was founded by men of the shantytown and surrounding area who wanted to try to do something for the community. The idea was to have older students teach younger students, and so on so forth up the chain of education. Everyone volunteers there and its the best form of self help these Moroccans have, theyre literally trying to help themselves break cycles of mal-education and poverty. The King heard about this plan and threw his support behind it along with some money, and thus a beautiful building was built, and now the community runs this school by themselves independently. The King helped make it happen, now its up to the people to help themselves, and theyre making a lot of progress.

So the school was our meeting point since the 3 Moroccan guys we were speaking with all volunteer there. We didnt waste anytime, and we dove right into some heavy stuff. So, as it turns out, a lot of Moroccans, like a lot of Europeans, are big conspiracy theorists. We started talked about the Arab Spring and the effect it had on Morocco and the Arab/Muslim world. The younger Moroccan though brought up an interesting point; that in the world there are tons of oppressed people, for instance sub-Saharan tribes are oppressed and other East Asian countries are still largely oppressed by their rulers, but how come there are no revolutions there like in the Arab world? It was something I have never thought of before, and in America when people see Arab world protests they largely just look at the TV and say “oh, again?”. The Moroccan kid said that there had to be some outside influence making this all happen, and it sounded more and more like his finger was pointing to the United States. He went on to say that our hand is in everything that happens in the world jut about, so it could be us. I cant say I agree with him, but I cant prove him wrong either. But it just baffles me about how the world sees us, and how we have a lot of fixing of our image to do in the world, thats one thing from being abroad that I have truly learned. However, I have to say, that like in Europe the people of Morocco dont hate America, and they dont hate Americans…they simply distrust the American government and its foreign policy. 

We went on to discuss where these idea come from, where all this distrust stems from. We largely pointed our fingers at our respective medias, and I think they are a huge instigator. The language the media uses at home and abroad is absurd, they make everything sound so horrific in order to sell news, and I dont think they understand the extent of the damage they do sometimes to our image and the image of others. Its all just so incredible to consider. Whats even more baffling, this Moroccan kid has formed all his opinions by what he sees on TV or reads, as is most of what our opinions stem from…and THAT is whats dangerous. No one in the world gets to see or speak to each other enough themselves and thus rely on the media’s view or distortion of reality to create in our heads the “opinions” we have. Moroccans by the way cant get a Visa to go somewhere to save their life, they are largely stuck in Morocco. They cant go to the U.S. for the most part unless its on a special student or work visa, and they cant go to Europe either for the same reasons. Americans have no idea how lucky we are with our blue passport that serves as a ticket to anywhere we want, and we have to use that privilege to get out there and see the world and formulate our own opinions and help others to see the truth about us and our culture as well. These guys had such strong views for largely never having experienced anything outside their own country, the media and what they read caused them to think the way they do…just like our media at home makes us think about certain cultures the way we do, its sickening. One really incredible point that was brought up was the Norwegian guy who killed all those teens at that summer camp back in the fall I believe. He is on trial now in Norway and his sanity is being questioned. One thing that was brought up was that if he had a beard and was Arab, no one would think to question his sanity or want to give him a psych evaluation, he would just be labeled a terrorist, even though the Norwegian guy is a terrorist himself, just not the depiction of one you or I are used to seeing in Western media….There is SO MUCH wrong with our perception of the world and others perception of us, and we tried to figure out a way to fix this…

We talked forever, brainstorming how to let the Arab world improve its image in the eyes of the West. We settled on the fact that western media does not make this an easy task. We also wondered whos job was it to try and fix all this, ours, or theres? Who is ultimately more responsible or capable of fixing all that is so messed up in our world between our two cultures. Is it us who have the capability to travel and see for ourselves, or them who have the ability to show the true colors of their faith and culture to the world if given the right opportunities by the media etc? How on God’s earth do we fix all this? We settled on the fact that it is DAUNTING task. I left the room after the meeting so confused about the world, and so confused as to how the world could go about fixing its problems that I wanted to run out of the building screaming. 

After our intense morning we headed for a quick stop to some Roman ruins of Chellah in Rabat where there is an ancient outdoor Mosque. It was very peaceful and very nice. There was some pool with eels where a man would throw in eggs on your behalf, and if the eels ate the eggs it was a good sign for fertility. Well, it was raining, the guy through the eggs in, and no eels came….we all decided that none of us were having kids.

After the quick visit to the ruins we headed back into Rabat to go home to our host families for some time with them and some lunch. We got back to JoJo’s house and sat down for tea again and talked and she started to make us lunch. I asked what was for lunch, and she said fish. John and I were severely disappointed since both of us are not seafood people in the slightest. We were open to the idea though, and clearly were not going to tell her we didnt like fish after she was making it. So we toughed it out and ate fish, and I have to say, it wasnt bad. It had so much spices and herbs that I didnt know it was fish, but I still had a thing against the texture.

After lunch we set back to the meeting house for a beautiful rain-free afternoon with a bunch of Moroccan students our age who were going to walk around Rabat with us and the old Medina market and town area. Before doing so though we took part in something special we had planned before coming to Morocco…

Back in March a Boston College 2011 graduate named Kelly Dalla Tezza was in Rabat, Morocco speaking at a Fullbright conference as she was a Fullbright scholar in Bahrain studying women’s success in Bahraini politics and other similar situations in the region. Very unfortunately, Kelly was in a car accident just outside of Rabat on March 16th and she was killed in the accident. When we heard about Kelly and her story we knew we had to do something when we came to Morocco. Before leaving I got in touch with Allen and told him Kelly’s story. Allen immediately started working on a memorial and we took part in one in Rabat with a floral arrangement that Bachir, one of our Moroccan guides picked up for us and Allen paid for. I printed a picture of Kelly back in Madrid and brought it to Morocco. In short, we had a small ceremony for Kelly paying tribute to her life and her work abroad. Kelly epitomized all that we were working towards on this trip in terms of cultural exchange, and it is a shame to lose someone like her who was so gifted. We snapped photos of the memorial, and I sent them back to BC. They are being sent to Kelly’s family. We wanted to let them, Kelly, and the BC community know that no matter where you are in the world there are always Eagles close by enough to be there for you.

After the short ceremony we walked for about an hour all over Rabat seeing the beach which was packed with surfers, apparently surfing is a big hit in Morocco. We also saw on the river bank a big stage where performers like Kanye West, Shakira and others perform every now and again. They are coming this year I believe they said. We split up in small groups and walked with the students to a cafe and sat down for more tea and just talked with them all afternoon. We exchanged ideas on culture and lifestyle like before, not as heavy, but thought provoking none the less. We asked about the Arab Spring, and they said that they will not be surprised if their country is next to revolt, because Arabs in general they said dont tend to like their leaders. An interesting point to be heard from a guy like him. We heard a lot of commotion in a square adjacent to our cafe, and a couple of us walked over to a wall by the cafe and peaked over to see a large protest of some kind taking place. All of a sudden the police charged at the protestors with clubs and started beating them, I felt like I was in Barcelona all over again. This time though I was on the other side of a wall a pretty safe distance away. I saw a couple people get hit, and there were people limping around after. It just goes to show you how tumultuous the rest of the world is, and when I got back to the table and told the Moroccan kids what we saw they didnt seem phased. Its incredible how countries in Europe and then here in Morocco have so many protests all the time and strikes and what not, that often turn somewhat violent. In the U.S. that largely doesnt happen, but culture in other parts of the world calls for standing up and getting angry enough trying to make statements to the government, and often. 

After our time with the Moroccan students we headed back to our meeting house where we met with a Peace Corps volunteer named Jen, and Allen was there too. Allen was in the peace corps himself in Mali when he was younger, this girl Jen was in Morocco for her 27 months. Jen was actually signing out of her assignment the next day, she was done with her 27 month rotation and going back to the states in just a few days, incredible to hear her experience. I didnt know much about the peace corps before except that it was a 2 year commitment of no pay really, you get a small stipend at the end worth about 6 grand for 2 years. I thought the peace corps was super organized, as in 50 volunteers in a remote village getting up everyday with a supervisor to go to work. Its so the opposite. Jen was the only volunteer in her village in Morocco amongst indigenous people. How it works is you basically get sent off on your own with the tools you need to find out how to make a difference where you are going. Jen for months just walked around her village seeing what the people needed. It was settled that the villagers would like some toilets, so Jen went about setting up the logistics for the supplies and teaching the people how to make the toilets. All in all over 2 years about 30 toilets were installed in the village, and Jen quarterbacked it all. Peace corps is extremely laid back and is all about leaving your “site” and its people able to know how to do something for themselves they couldnt do before without you teaching them. The idea is sort of like the concept that if you give a man a fish he eats one good meal, give him a fishing rod and teach him how to fish and he eats well for the rest of his life. Thats what peace corps is, and in a sort of unstructured way. Her stories were great, and she is now fluent in Morocco’s indigenous language, not Arabic though. Shes heading back to the states for grad school.

After meeting Jen we were heading to the Hammam public baths for a cleaning. The Hammam is a typical Arab bath house where people go to relax and cleanse themself. Traditionally it was how people took baths before showers and things of that nature, now its more of a cultural thing but as well as a way to clean yourself. The Hammam is sort of a huge steam room, there are ones for men and ones for women. There are 3 rooms of different temperature and there are big vats of water. You are given a bucket and a glove that it sort of like a brillo pad that you scrub yourself with to exfoliate. They give you soap made from olives as well that you lather up with and leave on for 10 minutes before scrubbing off. The Hammam is full of men from families, its a family affair. People come and scrub one another etc, its such an interesting place. Everyone is in their underwear and doesnt wear sandals. There is no way this place would be allowed to exist in the U.S. under health regulations, but here it does. There are men in the Hammam you can hire who will scrub you, we did it for the cultural experience, and let me tell you it was an experience. You pretty much get man-handled by a Moroccan man. You lay down on the tile (gross) and he scrubs away at you, and I mean scrubs, hard, its almost painful, but it feels pretty good. He flips you over scrubs your chest and all. Then comes the interesting part. After scrubbing you they stretch you. These guys you would think are trained in torture techniques or something. At one point the guy stood on my ass and pulled my legs up to his chest. They sit on your back and twist your arms around, its so intense, and theyre so damn rough with you. It still feels good though, and at the end they just pour a big bucket of water on you. By the end of the Hammam your not sure if your clean or dirty because you were rolling around on this gross tile, but you feel pretty great and pretty refreshed. 

After the Hammam we went back to our families for dinner and went to bed for the last time with them. By the way, Muslims pray 5 times a day as you might know. One of which is early in the morning. I was awoken at 4:30 by a Mosque’s loud speaker outside our window and the priest person signing in Arabic for the call to prayer. Everyone gets up for it, prays, and either stays up or goes back to bed. It lasts about a half hour. 

Monday, April 31st

The next morning we woke up pretty early and parted ways with our host family. It was sad saying bye to JoJo, but she told us to come back anytime, and in Morocco, they mean that. Today we would drive a couple hours through rural rural rural Morocco into the Rif Mountains to visit a village and see a different side of Morocco. We had seen Tangier, a port city, Rabat, the captial and cultural area, and now we set out to see a place that some people will never see in their life, even if they came to visit Morocco. Bachir a Moroccan who we had been with fro a couple days at conferences came with us as a translator on our 3 our drive to rural Morocco. Before we set out of the city though we made a quick stop at a the mausoleum of the current King’s grandfather, Mohammed the V. Here I will tell you very quickly about the Moroccan monarchy.

So I’ve procrastinated yet again in writing a blog post, but thats probably a good thing for you guys, because the longer I procrastinate the fewer details I remember and thus the less I write…

This post is about my spring break, Semana Santa, or the “holy week” in Spain. It encompasses the week before easter weekend, and the monday after easter Sunday. My spring break started on March 27th and ran until April 10th. My mom came over to Spain and met me on the 28th of March and we went on a cruise together that left out of Barcelona. The cruise went to Marseilles (France), Genoa (Italy), Naples (Italy), Palermo (Sicily, Italy), and Tunis (Tunisia in Northern Africa), and returned to Barcelona on good friday. I’ll go chronologically with this post sarting with my mom’s arrival and our time in Barcelona, give a short overview of the cruise, and a short blurb about each place. 

Wednesday, March 28th - Friday March 30th: Barcelona, Spain 

So like I said my mom came over from the states for spring break. My mom flew into Madrid on wednesday and had a connecting flight to Barcelona. I was on a separate flight about a hour and a half ahead of hers to Barcelona from Madrid. My flight was at 8 in the morning, so I caught a night bus from Madrid to the airport, not much sleep. I waited at the airport in Barcelona at the arrival gate and found my mom. It was really great to see her after leaving in January. I’ve gone a while at BC obviously without seeing her, but not talking as much from Spain makes it feel longer. We hopped on a bus and got to our hotel in Barcelona.

We stayed in the Hotel Continental on one of Barcelona’s main streets, La Rambla. The street goes from a main city square, Plaza Catalunya, all the way down to the water at the Port of Barcelona, the Mediterranean Sea. You should probably know that Barcelona is in the Spanish Autonomous Community of Catalunya (its called Catalonia in the states), and Barcelona is the capital of the region. In Catalunya they have their own distinct dialect of Spanish called Catalan, and it is very different from Castellano, the Spanish that the world considers to be “Spanish” and is what we speak in Madrid. Catalan is a mix between Spanish, French and some Italian. Catalan is even spoken in Sardinia, and Italian island. So as you can see, Catalan is a romance derivative language. In Barcelona signs, menus, newspapers and other such things are frequently listed in Catalan first, then in Spanish. I tried reading some Catalan, but you cant understand much, and to see it next to the Spanish translation is really interesting because you can notice the distinct and vast differences between the two languages. Everyone in Catalunya speaks both Catalan and Spanish, but no one else in the rest of Spain speaks Catalan along with their Spanish. In the Barcelona airport I listed to the announcements in Catalan, then in Spanish, then in English. I could not make out the Catalan for my life. 

My mom and I settled into our hotel and got a bite to eat and set out for a afternoon of walking around. I give my mom lots of kudos for surviving jet lag, but she said she slept on the plane, and when she arrived in Spain it was 9 in the morning, so it was as if she was waking up in the AM which wasnt so bad for her I guess. We set out and just explored randomly. I have been to Barcelona twice before; once I was very young with my parents, the last time was with my 8th grade class, so I remembered a lot actually when I got to see it again as it jogged my memory. Barcelona is really a great city, and I love that its on the sea. Barcelona is much more open than Madrid; the streets are much wider, 4 or 5 lanes at points, there are a good amount of large plaza squares and at each corner is a intersection, just the setup of the city is really nice. I think any town or city on any body of water has a leg-up on being more appealing to the eye since they have nice options as to how to set up the city streets etc. Barcelona is very bike friendly too, the streets have bike lanes along side car lanes and there are even special traffic lights for the bicyclists. We walked around for a while before heading back to the hotel for a nap. We napped for a while, woke up and had some dinner. We ate at a great Italian restaurant, really some of the best Italian food Ive ever had, and it was pretty cheap. Mom isnt the type to really like the kind of Spanish food I like, so I have to stick pretty mainstream with her, but thats ok, it means getting good food thats like food at home I’ve been missing. We had dinner and walked around a little bit more before going  back to the hotel for the night. 

The next day in Barcelona, Thursday the 29th, would prove to be one of the most interesting days of my life by far. On that Thursday the 29th was a planned, national, general strike for the entire country of Spain. What this means is that labor unions got together and planned for a general strike across multiple industries to protest the government’s handling of economic issues/labor reform in Spain. The strike had been planned for months, and everyone knew it was coming. Flights were largely cancelled across Spain as pilots didnt report for work, taxi and bus drivers didnt show up, metro workers too, so this was a serious movement to get the government to notice the people’s unrest. In Barcelona, all of the above happened, and more. 

During the day the strike was clearly evident by 90% of shops being closed, and the streets were empty with no cars, and throngs of people crowding the streets, setting up camp; chairs etc. The whole day in Barcelona was a free-for-all in a sense, there was hardly any law. It was amazing to see. During the day it was peaceful, labor unions were marching in the streets chanting with their signs etc. The most disruptive thing was probably people who were actually trying to drive on the road were unable to because youth had set up roadblocks at intersections disallowing hundreds of cars from passing through. The idea for the day was to stop the economy, for every one and every thing, and they were doing a pretty good job. Any shops that were open for business were shunned by protestors who chanted outside their store making for bad business, or harassing customers who were trying to go in calling them traitors. At one point, youth started to throw garbage into open stores, even throwing firecrackers inside at points, at this point I saw an H&M give up for the day and close their doors as to fear any progression toward violence. 

My mom and walked around all day and took in what we were seeing. The problem of the day was the youth, and the problem was esclating throughout the day. Youth just like me angry at the world and the Spanish government etc were taking to the streets in accordance with the general strike and beginning to start their own anti-government movement. As the day went on things escalated; the youth started organizing and trashing bank’s front window areas with trash, burned newspapers, paint balloons and graffiti. They started attempting to break glass windows by kicking them and even throwing rocks. All the ATMs were being smashed with rocks and broken, and the damage to bank’s fronts was picking up. The most they did though was smearing the signs with paint and graffiti-ing the front with anarchy “A”s inside their circles. You could just tell things were heading the wrong way, and they were. 

During the day though things were in a way nice. The streets were empty of cars as protesteres had pretty much shut down all the main city streets of Barcelona, including the main 4 to 5 laners of the city. So what that meant was that my mom and I could really see Barcelona with ease; walk around wherever we desired without hindrance, and we even rented bikes and went for a nice stroll around down by the water where protest activity was much less. So we got to see Barcelona in an interesting light, but got to see it nonetheless. 

The interesting part of the day came around 6 PM when thousands uopon thousands of people massed together in Plaza Catalunya, the main city square at the top of la Rambla street. The people were massinig in front of the Corte Ingles department store which had been open all day with riot police outside posting up as a deterrent to anyone who tried to go in and trash the place. More and more people began to mass in the plaza at one of the intersections and the plan was to create a march through the city. I started snapping photos with my mom’s new iPad and walking around seeing how things were going. My mom asked where the police were, and I told her that I bet the cavalry was only a half a mile away or so waiting to come in if things got bad. Sure enough 15 minutes later around 30 police vans roared into the Plaza each holding around 15 or so riot police officers.  They formed 2 fronts at two of the four intersections in the Plaza and just set up a front-line. They werent guarding anything necessarily, or protecting anyone, I’m not sure why they showed up. I think the goal was to try and make the crowd disperse and not march through the city and possibly vandalize anything. Well, the police presence just made things worse, and now the younger youth that had been out all day doing petty mischief-night things was riled up for a fight. 

The youth started to test the boundaries with the police; getting in teir faces, small shoving matches, cursing at them, but the police werent having nay of it and stood their ground. My mom decided it was time to go inside somewhere, so we went into the Hard Rock Cafe on the other side of the plaza, just a a couple hundred yards away on another corner of the plaza. The Hard Rock was open and had a couple bouncers outside making sure no one who would cause trouble was coming in. My mom sat down at the bar and ordered a drink, and started talking to a few other tourists at the bar. I decided to go back outside and try to get some more photos of all the commotion, which would turn out to be my big mistake. 

As I went back out and took more photos I noticed that the police slowly started becoming more serious. They now had hefty shields, and gas masks around their necks ready to be put on. The next time I came out after checking on my mom the gas masks were on, and there were officers shouldering rubber bullet loaded rifles. On the far corner by the Corte Ingles I could hear more commotion becoming more constant. I deicded to go and look over there and see what was going on. I found a raging fire in the middle of that street between the police and the youth. The kids were hurling rocks and home-made flash grenades, smoke grenandes and fire crackers. The police started to fire off rounds of rubber bullets, slowly at first, infrequently, and then picked up. 

I’ll stop the story here and just give you the general run-down. You can ask me in person to tell you the whole story……: What ended up happening was the police on that one corner fired off around 500 shots at once, creating a panic, and a stampede. I saw one kid lose his eye from a rubber-bullet to the face. His eye was literally gone, blood everywhere, and he ran towards me screaming for an ambulance. There was nothing I could do for him that he wasnt doing for himself, and everyone was running, so I ran too. I ran back towards the hard rock where my mom was, because the police had began an attempt to take back the plaza. I sprinted toward the hard rock with the sound of gun shots, sirens, and people screaming behind me. I ran up to an American high school teacher who I had been speaking with before, she had a group of 30 or so high school freshmen with her. I ran toward her and yelled at her to get the students out of there. They began to run with the crowd toward la Rambla, away from the police. I got up to the hard rock as they locked their doors and closed the gates- me outside, my mom inside. I turned around frantically and saw the police coming, viciously beating people as they came along and shooting aimlessly into the crowd. My mom’s face was of pure terror as I looked at her through the glass and gate. All I could do was stay put and put my hands in the air as the police advanced. 

The next day, Friday, March 30th, you would have never known a riot overtook the city. People were back to work, the metro open, taxis and busses operating, everything. The only way to tell was the destruction of store windows, broken glass etc. One starbucks was completely destroyed; the windows broken, and set a blaze with fire. I watched tourists that had come in on the ships for the day busily snap photos of the sights. All I could think to myself was “Wow, if these people could only have seen what happened here yesterday”. 

This day, the Friday, was the day my mom and I were getting on the ship to start out cruise. We woke up late and made our way to the port and boarded the ship. 

The ship was really beautiful. My family has taken a lot of cruises in the past as the go-to vacation since its usually pretty easy, cheap, and you can see a host of different places. This was the first time we were going with MSC cruise lines, an Italian company. It was a bit different from the ships that sail out of the U.S.: much fewer rules and regulations, 18 to drink, service wasnt all that royalty feeling like others where Americans usually want to be waited on hand and foot. The ship though was great, pretty new, clean, had nice facilities. Our room was great too, had a balcony, so there was nothing to really complain about for the most part. 

I’ll now just go day by day since each day was a new port. I’ll just give a brief overview of each place, what we did etc. 

Saturday, March 31st: Marseille, France

Our first port of call was Marseille, France. Marseilles is located on the French Riviera, in southern France, on the Mediterranean Sea. Marseille is a port-city, and France’s 2nd largest city overall after Paris with a population of just 852,395. The city doesnt really have all that much to offer except a different form of French culture than what you will find in Paris, or out in the country side. France as we all know has a long history of colonialism in Northern Africa, which is predominantly Muslim. So in Marseille there are a lot of Muslim immigrants, as well as a decently sized black African population. You can see ferry boats at the port that ferry back and forth between Algeria, and other North African countries. Marseille is a bit dirty, as most port cities are, but it still has a nice charm to it. There are stunning views of the Mediterranean Sea up in the hills, some nice churches that bare a lot of history, and finally the Basilica Lady of the Guard that sits at the top of a hill in Marseille over looking the sea. The Basilica dates back to 1214 with a chapel, but the structure there now is from 1864. The Basilica is really magnificent inside with incredible mosaics and color. Outside there is a huge statue of Mary presenting Jesus, the statue blesses the city, the harbor, and all those who visit Marseille. My mom and I walked around together in Marseille for a while before she went back and I climbed up to the Basilica, then after spent the rest of the day exploring the city, eating French food, and just taking it all in. All in all Marseille is a pleasant place, but there is more to do in the province that the city rests in and if I ever return Ill probably venture out and see places like Avignon which is about 2 hours away. 

One thing I have to add about this day was I made some new friends when I got back on board the ship. When I got back on board I went up to the hot tub which was empty to sit down and relax. After a few minutes alone in the hot tub 4 girls who appeared to be my age joined me. They were Spanish judging by, well, their use of Spanish, and their accents. They were all very pretty. It was a little weird just sitting in there alone with them, and then they sarted talking to each other. I could understand most of what they were saying, and at one point they commented on how I must feel kind of awkward sitting alone with them in the hot tub with me. I kind of smirked to myself, but had my sunglasses on shielding the expression in my eyes. They laughed, and then one of them looked at me and said in Spanish “you dont understand us do you?” in a tone that kind of hinted she was sure that I didnt. I laughed and responded in Spanish saying “Yes, I do understand you”. They all started cracking up a bit embarrassingly, and I laughed too. They asked where I was from and I told them who I was and where I was studying. It turns out they were all from Madrid, they were there with 4 of their other male cousins and their 80 year old grandma for the cruise, so 9 of them in total. The girls spoke perfect english, I could tell they came from an affluent family, and 2 of the girls had gone to a British school in Madrid their whole lives, so their english was outstanding. The 4 girls were 2 pairs of sisters. One 29 and 24, the other 16 and 12. None of them looked their age, the 29 year old, Elena, was an extremely accomplished Nurse who now worked for a surgical supplies company, and she looked 22. The 24 year old, Sara,  I though was 21 at most, and she was a lawyer moving to Milan in a week after the cruise for work. The 16 year old, Silvia, was still in high school, and looked 20, the 12 year old, Sonia, was in middle school, and looked 17. They were all so nice, and I met their male cousins that night; Angel, Alvaro, Dani, and the last one’s name escapes me. The oldest was Angel, who was 20, Alvaro was I think 17, Dani was 12, and the last one was I think 16. They did not speak that good of english, and sort of did their own thing. I mostly hung out with the girls, and Dani, the 12 year old boy, he was great, hung with him like a little brother, he was a lot of fun. In sum, I got to know the family really well; we dined together on multiple occasions, hung out in ports together, hung our every night at the disco. I was really happy to meet Spaniards that I could converse in Spanish/English with and have them as friends when I got back to Madrid. Since coming back to Madrid I have seen a couple of them, we’ve gotten together for drinks etc, and I hope to see them more. three of them are actually coming to NYC in the summer, so I will be seeing them then as well. 

Sunday, April 1st: Geona/Portofino, Italy

The next day we arrived in Genoa, Italy. Genoa is another port city similar to Marseille. Genoa is the 6th largest city in Italy and is popular for its day trips just outside. My mom and I took an excursion with the ship to Italy’s famous coastal town of Portofino. The town is an old Italian fisherman’s town with vibrantly colored buildings. The town is extremely small, with just a few restaurants and shops and a hotel or two. The town is nestled in a little cove/bay and is commonly photographed for magazine spreads. It is really beautiful. Surrounded by beautiful coast line and hills, its truly breathtaking. There is obviously an old church to see, and a hike up a hill to see beautiful views of the sea. I found some great spots to take some pictures of scenery that truly looks like it could be from a fairy-tale. I actually found a small graveyard of sorts next to/behind a church up on a cliffside that may have been the most beautiful resting place I could ever picture. I might put the picture above, or have it on facebook, but it was just beautiful with trees all around, small white hedge-stones, and the sea in the background. Not a bad place to have these people rest for all eternity. We took a bus to a small town and a boat ride to Portofino, so returning to the ship was just the retrace of those steps. The small town where we hitched the boat ride to Porotfino was beautiful as well with some nice Italian bakeries. We got back to the ship and had a nice night of dinner and festivities before out next port. 

Monday, April 2nd: Naples, Italy

Our next destination was further south from Genoa, which is in the northern part of Italy’s Mediteranean coast. Naples is below the midline of Italy, a little above the boot, Italy’s 3rd largest city. Naples is an interesting city, its defintely not what anyone thinks of in the states when you hear “Naples, Italy”. Naples, like the others, is a port-city, and thus a little dirtier. In fact, it was extremely dirty when we were there because the garbage men had been on strike for a week, yikes. The city though boasts tons of history for art and architecture, most notoriously the renaissance and baroque eras. With that said, there are some really great buildings and plazas in Naples worth seeing. There was also a indoor mall area thing that had beautiful floors and high magnificent ceilings. It was sort of indoors sort of outdoors because there were just these giant archways entering and exiting the area. In Naples my mom and I split up; she took a ferry over to the famous island of Capri while I took an excursion the ship arranged to Mt. Vesuvius, the volcano that destroyed the city of Pompeii in 79 AD. Vesuvius is quite the sight, a hell of a hike up to the crater, but well worth it. The views of the Gulf of Naples are incredible, and the crater itself makes you be pretty pensive about mother nature and her powers. Vesuvius is still very much an active volcano. In fact, the longest its ever gone without erupting is 40 or so years my guide said, they all havent been eruptions like the catastrophic one in 79 AD that desimated the region, but they still are eruptions. My guide explained though that it has been over 60 odd years now since its erupted…so they’re overdo. Geologists have been measuring the lava/magma’s depth over the years, an its been rising. In the past I forget how many years the lava/magma has risen from 10 km, to 7 km, so its coming up, quickly, and there should be a pretty big eruption they estimate in our lifetime. Residents in the Gulf area apparently keep bags packed and ready to go just in case my guide told us, and that geologists say they will be able to give people 3 days advanced warning of an impending eruption. Pretty mind-blowing stuff, cant believe people choose to live there, and my guide says Vesuvius is always in the back of their mind. The past eruptions have been strong enough to hurl massive boulders 300 meters out of the crater’s depth and down the mountain, so they are strong eruptions. The crater is all rocks today, and smoke still sifts through the rocks and is visible. Tourists used to be allowed to go down into the crater, but about 25 years ago an American tourist died due to the volcanic fume levels in the crater’s depths, since then no tourists are allowed down into the crater itself…After the excurision got back to the city I walked around, found my Spanish friends, hung out for a while with their grandmother, and we all walked back to the ship. The next day we would be in Sicily. 

Tuesday, April 3rd: Palermo, Sicily, Italy.

Moving on with our journey we arrived in Palermo, Sicily. Palermo is the capital of Sicily so thus much more metropolitan than the Sicilian hills and countryside people think about with wine and citrus trees abundantly growing. There are still citrus trees though just growing on the street hanging their fruit. Palermo is a busy and a bit congested city, after all, there has to be a center point for the Sicilian administration if the rest of the Island is just small towns and rolling hill scenery. Palermo though is very nice, with great food, and I mean great. I read somewhere on the ship some literature that said its not uncommon for Italians to eat some sort of pasta for at least one meal a day, and they never get tired of it because of the hundreds of varieties of shapes and textures. My mom and I walked around on our own and found some really great sights, some beautiful churches, and the best Italian food I ever had. I wish I could remember the name of the pasta I had, it was a type that is typical to Sicily, it sort of looked like spaghettios in its roundness, but it was baked; ham and cheese and the noodle, it was delicious. We ate and hung out, then headed back to the ship again, tomorrow would be our last port. 

Wednesday, April 4th: Tunis, Tunisia, Africa

Our last port of call was my favorite, and the most interesting. We were in the North African country of Tunisia. You may have head of Tunisia from the “Arab Spring”. Tunisia was the first country to rise up against its oppressive government and start the revolutionary wave that would become the “Arab Spring”. The Tunisian revolution started on Friay, December 17th, 2010 when a man by the name of Mohamen Bouazizi, a 26 year old street vendor, who set himself on fire in public protesting the government’s confiscation of his “wares” as wikipedia calls them and humiliation inflicted upon him by a municipal government official. Mr. Bouazizi’s actions were not taken lightly by the people, and they thus started a revolution for change. Our ship was only the 2nd ship to come to Tunisia since the revolution which all in all ended about a year later on December 12th, 2011 with the election of a new President of Tunisia. Tunisia you might not know is also a former French colony, but the country gained independence in 1956. My guide explained to us that Tunisia is a nation of over 3,000 years worth of history, just over 55 years of independence, and 1 year of democracy. What an incredible place. 

You wouldnt know by looking at Tunisia that such a revolution occurred, they have really gotten their act together in the past year, and they needed to in order to attract tourists back to the region. For the day in Tunisia I latched on to an excursion off the ship with a Tunisian guide who would take us to the Medina (the old town and market), and a small town known as Sidi Bou Said, which is commonly referred to as the Santorini of Tunisia for its strictly white and blue houses and roofs. 

The city of Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, is really something. It might not be like a western city, but it really is a progressively forward moving metropolis. There are some larger buildings, taxis, busses, and even a tram that runs around the city above ground on a track. Much more modern than you would think when you first think of Northern Africa. I had never been to a predominantly Muslim nation before, let alone Africa. I told my guide that it was my first time in Africa, and he in a way corrected me saying “Northern Africa”. My guide explained that Northern Africa is predominantly muslim, and the people are not black, but Arabic in descent. The Sahara desert forms a boundary between what is considered Northern African and the rest of Africa, which some term to be “Black Africa”. I’m not really sure how well that is phrased in terms of political correctness, but its their words, not mine. But I do understand what he was getting at I believe, the two regions are very different, though they are on the same continent of Africa. 

We strolled through the Medina for a while where vendors heckled the hell out of you to buy things. They are really hurting since no tourism has really been apparent since the revolution, so theyll do anything to sell you something, theyre a bit pushy and grabby at times, but you just need to keep walking or hold your ground. This though makes it a great time to come to Tunisia, you can virtually get anything you want at the price you want it; thats a bit exploitive if you ask me, but its the truth. I looked at a pretty necklace in Sidi Bou Said and the guy told me it was 40 euro, I wasnt all that interested though. Without me saying 10 words to the guy and on my way out the price went from 40 euro just for the necklace to 15 euro for the necklace, matching earrings, and matching bracelet. Unfortunately, I didnt have 15 euro, the guy was out of luck. The vendors are also well versed in a variety of languages. They all for the most part speak French since Tunisia used to be a French colony. However, they also seem to speak German, Italian, Spanish, obviosuly Arabic (the man language), and some English, but English isnt as prominent as the others. I dont know how they can speak all these languages so well though, its really incredible. My guide told me its because they “watch tv”….I find that hard to believe that they speak these languages from the little school they get and watching tv…..but my guide says schools are very good for languages, and they start young, so maybe its so. For anyone who I wanted to talk to and we couldnt speak English, we spoke Spanish, so that was really neat for me- my Spanish language skill came in handy to cross a cultural/language barrier in another country where we both didnt speak the other’s native language, but another one that we both were semi-fluent in. If I didnt mention before, they accept U.S. currency and Euros in Tunisia, and they also have their own currency, but I think they would rather have the western currency as it is stronger. 

We also visited a rug shop in Tunis by the Medina. Tunisia is famous for its fine oriental style rugs many Americans have in their homes. They are all hand-made, and very expensive. However, like I said, today in Tunisia price is negotiable, and you can get them for much cheaper. The owner of the rug store and his associate laid out over 100 or so rugs, all so different and all so so so beautiful. We watched women make them by hand, and the average rug takes about 6 months to make, and finer and more elaborate ones take up to a year to make. They run from 3,000 euro to 20,000 euro. They are of the finest material, pure silk sometimes, and a great deal of work goes into them. The guy must have had tens of thousands of rugs in his shop, and he was an approved rug-maker by the Tunisian department of commerce or something of the sort. He also gave us Tunisian/Arabic tea as we watched the spectacle of rugs be presented before us. 

The rug-maker and our guide both explained to us something I thought was very interesting; both explained to us that they needed us to have the best time ever in Tunisia, because we were their propaganda— they needed us to go back to our respective countries and tell the world that Tunisia is safe, and a nice place to visit. It was hard to differentiate from then on out what was true Tunisian hospitality, or ploys of affection to get us to like them, but I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt from what I know and have read about their culture that it was for the most part genuine. With that said, I would and do recommend Tunisia to others as a place to visit, and I would go back any day for an extended stay to learn more about the country and see more, including the Sahara with its Berber tribes in the south. 

Tunisia is also home to the famous city of Carthage, which was a Roman port for the empire. Tunisia was occupied by Romans for a number of years, and the ruins at Carthage still stand there today, thousands of years old, standing alone, with no gates or barriers or anything or ticket office. Anyone can go right up to them and touch them if they so desire, and they are in excellent shape. I’m not sure why they dont use that as a tourist money-maker, but it is what it is. Tunisia also holds the worlds longest still standing Roman aqueduct. Along with Roman culture there is an interesting fact to raise about religion in Tunisia. Tunisia is extremely tolerant of religions beliefs. There is a cathedral in Tunis, and synagogues as well boasting a strong Jewish population. My guide explained it is not uncommon to have a mosque, church, and synagogue on the same street. The population, however, is predominantly muslim, and there are tons of mosques in Tunis, and we did see the national mosque of Tunisia as well which was very cool.

Like I said, we went to a small village called Sidi Bou Said which is an old fisherman’s town. The town is completely white and blue, like Santorini, Greece’s famous post card photos. The buildings arent as clean I dont think as Santorini, but its still very beautiful and very vibrant. A law stands in the town that anything built must be blue and white and of the same shade as the rest. The U.S. Ambassador to Tunisia lives in Sidi Bou Said, its about a 15 minute drive from the Embassy, which we also saw. Also, an interesting point many people dont know- Tunisia was the sight I believe of some heated World War II battles. We drove by a cemetery on our way to Sidi Bou Said where my guide explained there are 2,841 American soldiers buried from the war. I wish I had time to get off the bus and see that, I would have liked to have paid my respects to those soldiers who may not get visited that often, and may have been in a way forgotten with time. 

All in all, Tunisia is incredible, the food is nice, and the people are warm. As a predominantly muslim nation with Arabic history, it is a great place to see that is outside of what we would normally witness on vacations. I recommend everyone go to one North African country if they can to see and experience a different from of tourism. 

Thursday, April 4th: At Sea

Thursday we were at sea all day making our way back to Barcelona from Tunisia. I spent the day with my Spanish friends and my Mom as it was the last day of the cruise. We would get up early Friday morning, which was Good Friday, to depart and go our separate ways.

Friday, April 5th: Barcelona —> Madrid, Spain

We got off the ship around 10:30 AM and we shared a cab with the Spanish family to a Barcelona Train station where their hotel was. They had a train the following day back to Madrid, and my mom and I had no plans. We had thought about renting a car and driving down the coast to Valencia, then back to Madrid. We parted ways with the Spaniards and my Mom and I went to 4 rental car places to see what the deals were…Being Good Friday and a huge week/weekend for tourism it was impossible to get a rental car. They were all either sold out, or insanely priced. My mom and I said the hell with it, and ended up getting train tickets on the Ave train back to Madrid.

The Ave train is Spain’s famous high speed rail, it got us back to Madrid VERY smoothly and comfortably in just over 2 hours. Incredible. We got to Madrid around 5:30 and checked into a hotel quickly. EVERYTHING in Madrid is closed in Good Friday, and I mean pretty much everything, we barely found a restaurant open to eat at. Madrid is much less touristy than Barcelona, so they abide by the Catholic religion much more strictly in terms of not opening shop doors etc on religious holidays. My mom and I spent the rest of the weekend in Madrid. I showed her around all over the place, we walked miles each day, and ate nice food, and stayed at a nice hotel. We switched hotels after night one since it wasnt in the best location and found a better deal closer to Sol. My mom left on Monday back to the States and I went back to the Colegio. Thus begins the final leg of my journey here in Spain.

The only trips left I have planned are for Morocco this coming weekend, the end of April, and a trip to Mallorca, one of Spain’s islands in the Mediterranean the first week in May. We actually have off school again Monday through Wednesday the first week in May, which is when I have class, so we get another spring break in actuality. The day I get back from Morocco is they day we leave for Mallorca (ouch). Mallorca though will be beach and relaxing. After those trips, I only have 3 weekends left in Madrid, and I want to savor them. I cant believe its almost over. 

This post was supposed to be before my spring break, but I procrastinated, so its coming now. Spring break was nice, and I’ll have a blog post about that coming soon.

_______________________________

So its been a while since I wrote a post about how things have been going here in Spain itself. I’ve made a point to write blog posts after each trip I take, because life in Madrid during my school week just is sort of the same old stuff, living a regular life, just abroad. In the beginning of my blog I posted a lot about the culture and other stuff that I had come to learn about since my arrival, so now I’ll just update on whats been going on, and any new realizations Ive come to have.

Spanish

First off, I have to hit the Spanish language ordeal. I have to say that since my arrival in January my level of Spanish has increased dramatically.  I will truthfully tell you that before I got here I didnt know the days of the week, I just forgot them completely from schooling. Of course, I know the days of the week now, its little things like this that just sort of come to you or you pick by being here. I dont remember ever asking anyone what the days of the week were since coming here in January, but I obviously know them now. Grammar has been a bit more of a struggle, but the guys in the Colegio are really great about helping us and tell us when we mess up, and just by that alone, just by being with people my own age and talking, I’m learning so much, more than I ever learned in a academic class room taking a Spanish class. I’ve also learned to curse like a sailor in Spanish, I wont share those with you, but I will say that when I feel the need to curse now to myself the first words to come out of my mouth now are Spanish. So maybe thats a good thing for when I get back to the States…I’ll be cursing to myself in Spanish and no one will be offended. Interestingly, a lot of us have come to have some trouble with our own native language of English. There have been countless occasions where we know the Spanish word for something, but the English word for whatever were talking about either a) escapes us, or b) doesnt exist. Its a really bizarre feeling when you know what a word is/means/feels like in Spanish, but you cant quite put your finger on it it English. Its a testament to how deep we have really dove into this language and culture, and its pretty great. I havent had a dream in Spanish yet though, which apparently for languages is a big milestone for when youve come to really master a language. I will say though that thinking about what I am about to say before I say it has dwindled down to a much easier point than from when I got here. If I am in a conversation with one of the guys at the Colegio now it is much easier to just keep talking and letting it flow, I dont have to stop and think about the translation of words anymore, my mind is processing everything much more easily and were all able to regurgitate words at a faster rate that indicates were not thinking hard, its just naturally coming, a great feeling to have. 

Comprehension wise were making strides too. For a couple of weeks at the Colegio at meal time I didnt speak all too much and just tired to listen. One of the difficulties we all agreed on when we got here was that we never thought we would ever come to understand the guys at the Colegio when they just talked amongst themselves; its fast, theres a lot of slang, and its not a 3rd grade level. Now though I am pretty comfortable sitting around with the guys outside on the benches and just shooitng the breeze. I can understand 90% of what theyre talking about, but I’m still working on the ability of just jumping in a conversation when something comes up between all of them, that sort of processing takes a little more time.

As great of a Spanish speaker those paragraphs may have made me out to be, I have to say I am no where near perfect, or by MY standards fluent. The guys at the Colegio continually tell us that we speak great Spanish, and that by THEIR terms they would consider us Spanish speakers. That to me is mind blowing. I think I have said in the past that there is a difference between people’s idea of fluency in languages between here and the U.S. In the States, if someone asked someone if they spoke Spanish, they may say “a little bit, my grammar isnt great, but I can get around”. Here, if you ask someone if they speak English, the answer is simply a yes or a no, there isnt a in between. So some of the guys we live with  by our standards speak pretty good English, but they think they dont. So for us I dont really understand why they consider us as able to speak Spanish if they dont consider themselves English speakers unless its perfect…My take on it is this: Until I feel comfortable negotiating a hostage situation in a given language, I dont consider myself fluent. 

Stadium

So the other week my friend Lindsay came and visited Madrid from London, were friends from back home in Jersey. I gave her the grand tour of Madrid, the whole shebang. One thing we did though that I hadnt done yet was go to the Real Madrid Football Club stadium. The stadium is in the north/central part of the city, and is home to Real Madrid, one of Spain’s (and Europe’s/the world’s) most famous, decorated, and most talented Soccer clubs. 

The stadium tour was 16 euro…a little steep, but I think it was well worth it. You self guided yourself into and around the stadium. You went up the the top decks for a great panoramic of the stadium seats and field, walked back down and through a history hall of the football club, through a very impressive trophy room, and then onto the lower decks of the stadium and onto the field. You got to walk around the exterior of the field, go into the VIP seating area where dignitaries like President Obama would sit if they came to a game. You even get to go back onto the field and sit in the players chairs, I dont know what theyre called in Soccer, but its the dugout in baseball. Those seats area pretty great, they were very nice leather Audi car seats, pretty fancy, and cool to know you were sitting in the same seats as some of the best soccer players in the world. I had a good idea to write one of the players a note and stick it in the crease of one of the leather chairs. The idea was more for Lindsay who is in love with one of the Real players, no pen and no paper though put a damper on the plan. We also got to go down into the visitors locker room, I gotta say I wasnt that impressed, but I bet the home team’s locker room is pretty great. Last stop was the press room where you got to snap pictures of yourself at  a table with the club’s insignia and all, pretty neat. 

All in all the stadium is very impressive, very well kept, and the history of the Real Madrid team is pretty impressive as well. Seeing all their trophies is a testament to their greatness. The soccer league in Spain and in Europe is comparable to the NFL in the states; the players are just as famous, if not more, and are paid millions and millions of euros…Nothing like soccer in the U.S. The stadium is in a pretty funny spot, or maybe it just seems like it because all of a sudden there is this massive stadium…Its not like the Meadowlands in Jersey at Giants stadium where there is just miles of parking lots before you get to the stadium itself. This stadium is just plopped next to a Metro stop, and thats how everyone gets there and leaves. 

All in all, worth 16 euro I would say.

The Mona Lisa (not the one in the Louvre)

So, Ill start by saying that I am not the biggest appreciator of art in this earth, in fact, I really dont like art that much at all. However, I’ve come to appreciate it a little more since taking my Prado class at school, and I am forced to spend 2 hours a week in the Prado with a tutor who shows us around and shows us the paintings we see in class on the projector. 

Anyway, recently in Spain, and in the art world, there has been a pretty big and important finding. We all know of Leonardo DaVinci’s famous painting, the Mona Lisa, which is on display behind bulletproof glass in the Louvre in Paris, France. Well, just recently, the Louvre in Paris asked the Prado to analyze a certain copy of the Mona Lisa that the Prado had in its possession. The copy was supposedly from around the same time as the original Mona Lisa, but was supposed to be nothing special. It was just a copy of the women herself, and a black background. The portrait had been sitting in the basement of the Prado for years and years just collecting dust in storage. They took it out at the Louvre’s request to do a full work-up on it for some scholarly project the Louvre was doing or something like that. The analysis included a infrared scan of the painting, and thats where things got interesting. 

So they scanned the painting, and what they found was something extraordinary, and shocking. The scan revealed that behind the black background of the Mona Lisa copy was some sort of other background…another layer of paint. The decision was made to peel away the black paint that was supposedly covering the other background. The paint was peeled away ever so carefully, and quite easily, without destroying what was behind it…

What they found was astonishing…It was a absolutely stunning and beautiful copy of the background of the Mona Lisa, an exact copy…the same background, but with more vibrant and beautiful color. The Mona Lisa copy herself too is much more, colorful, and well kept, but they always thought that was just this copy cat’s rendition. The painting as a whole was so beautiful, so precise to the real Mona Lisa except for the fact that the real one is so degraded and faded. With more research and analysis they came to conclude that the copy and the original were both from the same time period, both on the same type of canvas, with the same type of wood for the frame, and the same type of paint…What they believe now is that Leonardo DaVinci’s apprentice at the time constructed this work, and that Leo let his apprentice copy him as he himself made the Mona Lisa…This is incredible, because if this is true, that means that this is what the ACTUAL Mona Lisa may have once looked like…before it was damaged, stolen, exposed to sunlight for years and camera flashes…this is what the color truly used to be (maybe), the beauty it used to exalt (maybe). I have to tell you that the copy is absolutely beautiful. It is so vibrant and so detailed as to the background and the colors that it is just breath taking. It was on display in the Prado, had a rope around it, glass in front of it, and a guard posted on each side of it. The significance of the painting was just coming to light in the past couple months, and the work was scheduled to be moved to the Louvre in the past couple weeks for further analysis. It has since moved to the Louvre…Now for the more interesting part to the story.

Like I said, the copy had a black background…This to everyone, especially scholars, is the most perplexing fact. Where did this black background come from, and why did it exist? Who on earth would cover up such a beautiful thing? Whats more, the black paint they peeled away came off so easy, how was that? Well, with more analysis, they found out that whoever covered it with the black paint took the time to put a coat of varnish down on the copy first, then the black paint. This is the only thing that allowed the paints not to mix or get stuck to each other and and allow the black paint to be peeled away without damaging the original work underneath.  Whats even more interesting, and mind blowing, is that the paint that was put over the work was evaluated, and it is 150 years older than the original work itself….That means that 150 years after this copy of the Mona Lisa was made someone, somewhere, took the time to cover it in black paint, only leaving the women in the painting herself to be exposed as an identifier that it was a copy of the Mona Lisa. Who did that? Why? And why did no one know about it? The black paint is what saved this art piece…because the black paint (along with being in a basement in storage) preserved the paining for centuries… Most of the painting never saw the light of day, literally. As you can imagine, the theories that have been sparked go far and wide, and I am almost certain youl will see a book or a movie about this like the DaVinci code…

My theory, and its a bit crazy, but I think that there is something hidden in the background of the Mona Lisa and this copy…Maybe a sentence, maybe its the whole place that is the background itself is the secret (the background is a mountainous landscape with a flowing river). Anyway, I feel like maybe someone knew the significance to this secret in/of the background, and knew that the Mona Lisa was degrading, so therefore so was the secret. The person who covered the copy in black paint knew the secret was in that background as well, and wanted to protect it, so he covered it in black paint to preserve it…Thats my imagination, and I think that would be a good movie plot for Tom Hanks to jump into. One thing though that really baffles me is that whoever covered the painting with the black paint could have never known in the 1700s that infrared scanning would ever come to exist….When this guy covered the painting, for whatever reason, he never told anyone…Because no one ever knew that it was covered like that, and thats why it sat insignificantly in a basement in the Prado for years and years…The guy was trying to hide or protect something it seems, but he wanted it to be found at the same time, because he took the time to coat it in varnish so that the black paint could one day be removed. But how would anyone ever know to remove the paint if they never told a soul who had the authority to do something about it? Without infrared scanning, they would have never found it…

Ill let your imaginations run wild, but the work is now in the Louvre being studied, and Ive heard it will be on display soon enough next to the original Mona Lisa herself…and I’m sure there is more to be learned about this great mystery. 

Food

Having been in Spain for so long now I really have to admit I have become accustomed to Spanish/Euorpean food and ways of eating. Sandwiches are everything in Spain, theyre called bocadillos, and its really very literal. A ham and cheese sandwich is just that- a piece of ham, and a piece of cheese, on some hard sub roll with no condiments. Its virtually impossible to get mayo on a sandwich. When I got here I thought eating just that was horrible, but by now I think my taste buds have adapted, and it all seems fine and dandy now, and normal. 

There are a few types of ham (jamon) in Spain; jamon iberico, jamon serrano, and jamon york. Jamon iberico is Iberian Ham, its more natural, free range cows, “healthier” and a tad more expensive. Jamon Iberico and Jamon Serrano are bothe “cured” meat products, they are never cooked. They are sliced off a leg of a pig by a knife, not a meat slicer like a deli at home. The delis here literally just have legs hanging from the wall for you to buy or the butcher to carve up, and these legs can stay good for up to a year and a half just sitting out normal like they hang in the shops. In the U.S. it is illegal to sell this product and produce it because the U.S. is too lazy to take the time and money it would need to properly inspect this product since it isnt cooked meat. I’m not sure if were missing out on anything too important, but it is pretty interesting, and a good snack. Jamon York is regular ham like in the states that you and I would put on a sandwich. 

Food in Spain is a little tiresome sometimes though, its very repetitive, at least when youre a student and eat the same cheap stuff all the time. Its all about tapas, which are very much the same everywhere you go- the small appetizer dishes you share with your friends when you go out. However, if you venture out more and try some more gourmet stuff things get interesting and start tasting better. One night a couple of us went out for some tapas on La Latina, a street notoriously known for its plenitude of tapas bars and small restaurants. My friends Fitch and John went up and ordered for the table. We got a variation of tapas we hadnt had before, they were a little more gourmet than the usual ham and cheese on bread with sauce or corquetas. I had no clue what I was eating, but I was liking it. At the end Fitch and John asked if we all liked what we ate, and we said we did, then they told us what we had ate since they were the ones who ordered it. One component of one of the tapas we ordered happened to be curdled pig’s blood…..It was delicious. My friend Lindsay who was visting from London gasped and looked like she was going to throw up. I scooped some more onto my fork and took a big bite of just the pig’s blood, and I loved it.   

Step out of your comfort zone, order without asking what it is, and try to be a little more gourmet in Spain and you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Spring Time

I have to say that I am absolutely thrilled that Spring is finally here in Spain. The winter here isnt awful by any regards, at least in comparrison to Boston, but I have to say that when you think of your study abroad experience in Europe before you leave you never really envision yourself in coats and sweaters- more so you think of yourself in sandals and shorts galavanting around in fields of flowers with beautiful buildings in beautiful green towns. Well, winter does exist in Europe, and it exists in Spain. Since we got here in January the trees have been dead, with no leaves, the famous gardens of Madrid and parks have mostly been dead too. However it has gotten progressively warmer since we have been here, and even in the winter months during the mid-day it has been in the 70s, hit 80 a couple times. Now in the end of March and beginning of April trees are blooming, and flowers too, and its making me so happy. Just to see green and smell the smells of blooming plant life is great. With each day Spring is more apparent, its beyond fantastic.

I may have made Spain sound dismal in the winter, but it really isnt. I have had days where Ive been laying in the park with my shirt off sweating and getting tan. Its just that the trees havent had their leaves, theyre slowly returning though

Classes

Classes at UCM have been going pretty well. I understand my professors more and more each day which is nice, and the more I understand the more interesting it becomes.

My Prado class gets the Most Improved Player award, since I really never did like art, but now my appreciation has gone up and I sort of enjoy looking at some of the stuff now I see in the Prado and study. I can analyze a painting now too like a true critic, or at least an amateur one. 

My class on the famous Spanish author Cervantes has also been going well. We read some of his major works and short stories. I usually have to find the translation online and read it in English before we read it in class in Spanish because the language he uses is old old old Spanish, sort of like Shakespeare in English. Cervantes’ stories though are great, and Ive actually enjoyed reading most of them. 

The Islam class I am taking has been great since its the easiest class. The professor really just wants us to take something cultural away from the class, and it seems that if we do just that then he is satisfied. The class centers around the history of Islam in Spain and Islam in the world at large today. It is pretty damn interesting given how many Muslims inhabit the world and how fast the religion is growing. 

My Contemporary History class has come to be one of my favorites by far, and in the beginning it was my most dreaded, so really maybe this one should get the Most Improved Player award. The professor is absolutely out of his mind, he loves history and is brilliant, but he is a nut job. To paint you a picture he is around 5’8, bald on top with brown/grey hair on the sides, and a huge bushy mustache half grey half white/brown. He walks in the door a few minutes late while were all sitting and slams the door, walks to the chalk board with his hands behind is back, and starts writing, and we furiously begin taking notes. He’ll finish writing the timeline for the day and turn around and start with ferocious enthusiasm; loud, articulate, inflection of his voice like you wouldn’t believe— he can go from a whisper to a yell in the same word. Anyway, my theory on him is that he is a ex-Soviet spy who was stationed in Madrid during the Cold War, and when the war ended he lost communication with the KGB headquarters in Moscow and was thus stuck in Madrid, so he tired to assimilate the best he could and began a career as a history professor. The man looks like a Russian spy and has the swagger of ex-military without a doubt. The class though is insanely interesting, and I love Spanish history, and I mean I love it, its fanatically interesting and really mind blowing at parts. Living here and knowing the history is a great treat, because I can see why things are the way they are today here in Spain, just wonderful.

Advanced Spanish Grammar has been…ok. A bunch of others and myself have chosen to take this class as pass/fail for our Boston College credit because its just too weird of a course to risk getting a true letter grade in that will count for our GPA. The class grade is 45% for the midterm and 45% for the final and 10% for “other work” which there really hasnt been much of. So the thought of getting a C in the class because the exams are worth so much was just too annoying and we alleviated that by taking it pass/fail. Since making the decision we have cared so little about the class, which has made it harder to concentrate. However, even when I do concentrate I still have no clue what were really doing, I’m not even sure its really grammar to tell you the truth. I was and still am horrible at grammar in my native language of English, so trying to learn Spanish grammar…in Spanish…has just been really not that easy of a task. I dont think if this lady explained everything in English that she has taught us so far that I would have been able to get it either. So who knows. 

We had exams right before our spring vacation, Semana Santa, the holy week which encompasses Easter holidays. We were so damn scared for these exams you have no idea, because all the classes have just been straight lecture by the professors with no outside work. So all we had was our notes, and what we could understand from each professor….

The week before exams we all studied like mad men and got together for study groups, exchanged notes etc. The exams didnt turn out to be that bad. Prado was the hardest to study for, but was the easiest exam for me..probably because I went nuts making a study guide and memorized every damn painting we ever learned. History wasnt bad, he gave 1 big general question on something we spent a lot of time on, and then 2 more focussed but still big-topic questions, and that was that. Islam, there were 10 questions, and he gave us 15 possibles the day before the exam along with their answers…so that was an easy A. Grammar…..well, I didnt study really, and I pray to God it went alright. Cervantes is going to be after vaction…we’l see how that one goes.

Rugby Team

So as I have mentioned before, the world of my Colegio Mayor focusses around Rugby. The Colegio Mayor is the host headquarters of a community Club rugby team, so there are a few teams with various ages and degrees of competitiveness associated with the Colegio, all under the “Cardenal Ximenez de CisnerosRugby Club ”. There is a youth team with little kids on it, a teenager team it appears, 2 more college aged teams that most of the guys I live with are on,  and then a group of older guys in their 20s or 30s that are more professional- about 5 or so guys from the Colegio are on this team, the rest are outsiders who are older. 

A couple weeks ago when I was in London the Rugby Club had a huge game in San Sebastian up in Northern Spain. The whole Colegio went up to the game to support the 1st tier team since it was a very important match. I didnt really understand the importance of the game until I was back from London and the guys from the Colegio returned the next day on their busses.

When I was back from London there were only a couple guys in the Colegio there who didnt go on the trip to the game. They went bonkers on the Sunday afternoon the guys were set to return. They came and found all of us Americans who were around coming back from weekend trips and told us the guys won their game, and that there would be a big celebration tonight…that was an understatement.

The guys returned on the busses around 8 PM, and all day long the guys who were at the Colegio were preparing for their arrival- making banners, preparing party favors, preparing one of the lounge rooms in the administration room for a party etc. The busses came at around 8 and everyone was going absolutely nuts. They made a tunnel for the guys who were on the 1st tier team and they all ran through it as they got off the bus. I finally asked what all the fuss was and it was finally explained to us.

This game was a qualifying game to be in the 1st tier League of Rugby in all of Spain- the professional league, and they won, now the club’s team is a 1st tier team in the Spanish Rugby Federation. How this works is like football in the states or soccer here in Spain. In soccer in Spain all the teams are “club teams” private teams…and there are many leagues of soccer in Spain, but at the top are the big teams centered around geography like Madrid and Barcelona. These teams are in the 1st league in the Spanish Soccer Federation. Similarly, for football in the states, we have the NFL which comprises a bunch of private “club teams”. There are other leagues than the NFL in the states, but the NFL is the 1st tier league of American football and is mostly centered geographically with major cities having the best teams and best players, like the New York Giants etc. Anyway, in Spain there are many leagues of Rugby, and this game they won was a qualifying game to be placed into the NFL of Spanish Rugby, and they won, and now they’re a professional team.

With all this said, Rugby in Spain still isnt nearly as big as Soccer is, but its growing, and the guys have a lot to be proud of for their accomplishment. They partied all night long until 7 AM, they just went insane. They had a part where they introduced all the players of the 1st team, and I gotta tell you that these guys are the most fit guys I have ever seen. A lot of them ripped off their shirts in an extravagant show of strength when their name was called, and these guys were nothing but muscle. 

Now the guys in the Colegio have something more to aspire to since the players of  middle team that they are on in the Rugby Club of the Colegio usually graduate on to this now Professional 1st tier team. 

Ciclo de Cine

The week before exams the guys in the Colegio had an American themed week, specifically because we are their guests this semester. The week included a ton of movie viewings of typical American college movies like American Pie etc etc. They also had a lot of sporting events like basketball tournaments. One day in the afternoon there was a huge basketball tournament and they also bought a ton of beer and tried setting up a beer pong tournament. This was really hilarious because these guys had no clue how to play beer pong. They set up the cups all wrong, and I walked up to the tournament watching them bounce the ball at the other cups each time…I had to stop them and explain the rules, and the real way of how to play. After a while they got it, and they absolutely loved it…they played for hours. 

The last night of the week they had a big barbecue outside- they made hamburgers, hotdogs, steak, etc. The steak I have to say was great, and I really felt like I was home on the 4th of July down the shore which was really nice. The guys bought fireworks and were setting them off all over the place, in no way would this be legal anywhere else, but they were just setting them off feet away from the building up into the air with trees all around etc, insanity. They had a baseball and some tennis balls and had us play some baseball, really a great time. The culmination to it all for me was when they hoisted me up on a table outside by the grill and made me sing the national anthem of the U.S. in front of about 80 of them and visiting girls from other Colegios. They all put their hands over their hearts, and hummed along as I sang, and they chimed in for the verses they knew, like the ending “for the land of the free and the home of the brave”. When I finished singing they set off a plentitude of fireworks behind me. It was a great time, and I was really appreciative for their efforts at a American themed party because it really made me feel at home, but also miss home too. 

“New Spain”

The last thing I’ll talk about is something my Cervantes Professor brought up in class a couple weeks ago. It has to do with how Spain used to be socially and politically, and what it is now.

My Professor is a bit of a Romantic, but very well versed in history and culture and really knows his stuff about Spain in regards to a variety of topics. One day he brought up how hour university, and Spanish youth, used to be during the time of the dictator Franco who reigned from the 30s to 1975. Our professor explained that the university was State run, but it was the center for protest against Franco’s rule. There were constantly riot police at the university ensuring the safety and security of state employees and education etc. This got him talking about the state of Spain and its youth now in 2012.

Our professor explained that 30 or 40 years ago people used to fight and stand up for their rights and really go after to change what was wrong in the country. Now though, our Professor explained, people just leave or go to sleep and forget about it. He explained that this is a “very sad” generation of youth in Spain, and he went as far as to describe them as the “worst generation”. Im not sure what he was getting at because people here protest alot against the government….but it is a lot of the time middle aged people chanting and organizing, the youth only come in to join the band wagon to become destructive and expel anger/frustration. So really I’m not entirely sure as I write this what he was summing up for us, but I remember sitting in class when he was talking about it that it made sense, and I felt his sentiment on the matter to be true. Spain is in a difficult position right now economically, politically, and socially. Combine this with the fact that democracy is so young in the country you get the feeling that this nation and its people are really being put to the test…we’ll see how it pans out, but I am truly fearful for the future of Spain. 

A post will soon follow about my Spring Break travels…

Cordoba y Granada

This post is a little late, been procrastinating…

Last weekend I went to 2 cities in the southern region of Andalucia. The trip was BC sponsored and all BC in Madrid students were able to come. Around 50 of us ventured down with our directors Patricia and Paloma for a great weekend exploring a very unique and historical region of Spain. Our first stop was Cordoba on Friday, where we stayed for just half the day, and then headed to Granada where we would stay in a hotel for the rest of the weekend leaving Sunday afternoon.

A little background into Cordoba and Granada:

Cordoba is about 4 or so hours south of Madrid in the region of Andalucia, and is the capital of the Province of Cordoba. In Spain, there are 17 Autonomous Communities, or regions as I call them, and then several Provinces within these 17 regions, sort of like a state has counties in the U.S…Cordoba is a very old city with a magnificent history. Its greatest claim to historical significance is the fact that when the Arab/Berber Muslim army of northern Africa invaded the Iberian peninsula in 711 the city became the provincial capital in 716 of the new nation that was being formed by the Berbers. Later, In 766, when the Berbers separated from the Caliphate in Damascus  (the ruler of the Arab empire) after a civil war within the Arab empire they made their newly acquired Iberian territory their own indepdendent state of “al-Andalus”. This new state decided Cordoba would be the capital. In 1236 the city was recaptured by the Spanish king Ferdinand III after months of siege. The city then underwent the re-conquering/conversion methods of the Catholic monarchs in the 1400s; churches built etc. I will explain more about that when I get to Cordoba in a little bit. 

Granada is another city in the region of Andalucia, and as you might guess, is the capital of the province of Granada. Granada is nestled at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountain range and is farther south than Cordoba (about 2 hours south an east), and closer to the coast. Granada similarly was taken by the Arab/Berber Muslim army in the 711 invasion and was a Berber stronghold. Centuries later, shortly after the re-taking of Cordoba in 1236 by the Spanish, the government in Granada surrendered the city to Ferdinand III and the city was back in the hands of the Spanish monarchy. 

Both Cordoba and Granada as you see have large historical significance in terms of Spain’s 800 year history of Arab rule. This 800 year long dominion has left a huge mark on the culture of Andalucia that is ever present today, especially in the cities of Cordoba  and Granada.

Cordoba: Friday, March 2nd 

We woke up in Madrid on Friday morning around 7 AM and headed to the Atocha metro stop where we would meet the rest of the BC group and our directors for the bus to Cordoba. As usual, a good portion of the group was running late for our 7:45 meeting time. Some of the group decided to go out to one of Madrid’s best nightclubs, Joy, the night before and just stay out until the bus meeting time, that worked really well for a lot of them. 

We set out on the bus, all 50, for the 4 hour trip to Cordoba. The drive to Cordoba was pretty pleasant, and once youre outside of the Madrid outskirts the scenery becomes very beautiful. We headed south through the region of Castilla La Mancha, where Toledo is, and continue south toward Andalucia. The farther south we went the prettier the scenery became. Near the border between Andalucia and Castilla La Mancha we were presented with beautiful rock face mountains and lush green vegetation. You could have told me that we were somewhere in the Himalayas and I would have believed you. Into Andalucia the terrain flattened out a bit and an abundance of fields full of olive trees hugged the highway. Most of the bus dozed off and slept for a while, as did I, and before long we arrived in Cordoba. 

We arrived just outside the main city center where we parked the bus and walked down the road along a river that runs by the city. A old and magnificent bridge crosses the river, linking a guard tower and the city’s main entrance. We crossed the bridge and headed into the city for lunch which our directors had planned out for us at a nice restaurant. We had about 5 courses of tapas for lunch, all so delicious. We were told before our trip by the guys at the Colegio that the tapas in Andalucia were better than in Madrid. I never really got why, but they were right. Everything was great, really tasty, a little different from in Madrid, but still pretty typical tapas. Perhaps the most exciting one was Bull tail. They literally handed you a plate with a vertebrae-like bone which had meat on it. Im pretty sure some peoples portions were just straight up vertebrae and not the actual tail because they resembled a vertebrae far too much with the wing projections of vertebrae bone. Bull tail/vertebrae is very tasty, typical of Spain, and is  good meat. 

After lunch we headed to the one thing we really came to see in Cordoba, the Mezquita-Catedral of Cordoba. In English, the Cathedral-Mosque. Cordoba is quite small, at least historic Cordoba is, and the most important thing to see is the Mezquita-Catedral, so thats where we were going to spend most of our time with a tour guide that we met at lunch. 

We set off from lunch and walked about 5 minutes to the entrance of the Mezquita-Catedral. The Mezquita-Catedral is a Cathedral in Cordoba that tells a big piece of the story of the Arab/Berber invasion of 711. Prior to the 711 invasion the Iberian peninsula was part of the Visigothic Kingdom, a kingdom that encompassed the whole Iberian peninsula of Spain and Portugal and extended north as well into France and some other parts of Europe I believe. In 711 the Arab/Berber Muslim army invaded, as I have explained in the past multiple times, and took over. In Cordoba there was a Visigothic Church, the Church of Saint Vincent, on the site where the Cathedral is today. The Berbers destroyed the church in 785 and started the construction of the Mosque of Cordoba. This Mosque would come to be considered the most important sanctuary of Western Islam and would have great significance for not only religious aspects of the newly formed Al-Andalus but also social, cultural, and political aspects. As I said, King Ferdinand III of Castille conquered Cordoba in 123. Reclaiming the land of Cordoba was a matter of recuperating a sacred space that had suffered the imposition of the Islamic faith that was foreign from the Christian experience. Ferdinand III however did not destroy the Mosque, he saw it as too important to such a long reign of culture etc. Instead, a main chapel was constructed below a key skylight in the Mosque and the Mosque was converted into a Church, dedicated in 1236, then into a Cathederal later in the 1400s by Ferdinand II of Aragon. Numerous other renovations to the interior and exterior of the Mosque commenced to convert the Mosque into a Cathedral. However, you can easily tell today that the Cathedral used to be a Mosque, I would almost consider it half and half, a mix. 

The Mezquita-Catedral is so beautiful inside and out. The inside is full to the brim with beautiful Muslim arches colored with the typical Muslim red and white color scheme. Christian additions are very visible as well; large new pillars, beautiful marble and stone molding creates archways in the ceilings, chapels line the walls just like any other Cathedral, etc. The mix of Muslim and Christian architecture is an incredible sight. One of my favorite things I found which I have a picture above of is a crucifix on a wall inside nestled within a Muslim arch…what a mix…two distinct religions and cultures mixed in such a way, existing side by side peacefully…the symbolism of that is overwhelming to see and really thought provoking. Its really incredible to be inside a building constructed in the 8th century by Muslims, then converted centuries later by Christians to a Cathedral. There are other Cathedrals in Spain I have visited that were once Mosques, but those were more-so completely renovated to the point you cant really see the Muslim influence anywhere. Here though, In Cordoba, the Mosque is pretty much in tact from its original construction, and the Spanish monarchy respected its presence so much as a cultural and religious entity that rather than tearing it down they simply added on to it to make it a Cathedral. They kept all the interior, let Muslim archways remain etc, just really incredible stuff. When I come to talk about Granada I will talk more about the Catholic Monarchs who retook spain from the 800 year Arab rule over the Iberian peninsula, Ferdinand III who I have touched on, and Isabella. They’re a talking piece worth explaining.

After exploring Cordoba some more and seeing some more of the great mix the city has to offer in terms of culture we headed back to the bus for a 2 hour ride to Granada where would stay for the rest of the weekend. Before heading off we stopped at the guard tower at the end of the bridge we orignially came into the city from. The guard tower is now a museum that houses models of what Cordoba used to look like and other portions of Al-Andalus and how the Arab rule over Spain worked etc. Neat stuff. If you didnt catch it before, the original Arab state Al-Andalus that came to be after the 711 invasion is the region of Andalucia today in Spain, the portion of the country that the Arab rule started in after the invasion. 

Granada 

After wrapping up in Cordoba we got back on the bus for the 2 hour ride South and East to Granada. The drive was extremely beautiful, at one point we were driving through some hilly fields of some sorts that had some of the greenest grass I have ever seen, there is a picture above. I thought I was in Ireland, it was that hilly and green, and a beautiful sunset. I snoozed a bit and we got to Granada around 8:30 at night. We checked into our hotel, yes, a hotel, no hostel this time, it was great. The hotel was located in a great location in Granada close to Plaza Nueva, and walking distance to the main city center area as well as the tourist locations. The hotel was really nice as well; great bathroom/shower, nice beds, a TV, just great accommodations, felt luxury in comparison to a hostel. All we could think of when we checked in was “Oh god, what has this hotel gotten into” because we knew we would probably be going out tonight, and I cant imagine 50 college kids inhabiting 2 floors of a hotel would be all that quiet.

After checking in and getting out stuff in our rooms we headed out to find some food. We decided to hit a couple streets near the hotel which are quite famous for their notorious tapas bars. We stumbled into one called La Belle y La Bestia (The Beauty and The Beast). It was just like a tapas bar we frequent in Madrid, Tigre. Its standing room only for the most part, you order a beer and they give you a generous portion of tapas along with it. I got a pint for 4 euro and it came with a nice plate of some Andalucian tapas. The tapas bars in Granada kinda work in a funny way; you have to start with tapas plate number 1, and work your way up to the others, you cant just order the 2nd plate offering. I think its their way of making you stay and ordering more drinks to get to the other tapas. Interestingly, a lot of places have the same tapas offering for their first plate, so its sort of in your best interest to stay put in one bar in order to get different food. We got up to around round number 4, all the tapas were great. We hung out at the tapas bar and met some BC kids there who were studying in Granada for the semester. It was like a night in Madrid hanging out. We stayed at the taps bar for a while and then head out to wander around the city some, see if we could find a good discoteca or a bar to hang in. We wandered around for a while, but the general consensus was to call it an early night and make Saturday night a big going out night since so many people went out the night before our trip here and were feeling the pain. Most called it a night by 1:30, and we had a nice late wake up for breakfast at 9:30.

Saturday, March 3rd: Granada 

John and I who shared a room woke up at 9:30 and headed down to breakfast. The breakfast at the hotel had to have been the best breakfast I have ever had and ever will have in Spain. They head tons of little chocolate filled croissants, baguettes that you could put ham and cheese on and toast it, fresh squeezed orange juice, fresh fruit…it was great. Everyone trickled into the lobby and we were finishing up breakfast when our directors told us there was a change in the schedule, and we dont have to meet until noon. I think telling us to get up before 9:30 was just a ploy of theirs to keep us from going insane the first night and potentially sleeping the day away, since this way, everyone was up because we thought we had to meet at 10 after breakfast. Anyway, we had some free time now so everyone split up and walked around the city. I went with a few people down to a shopping district of Granada since we knew when we toured we would see the older parts of the city. They have tons and tons of retail stores in Granada; from H&M to Zara they have it all. Interesting to see. We walked around aimlessly for our free time before meeting back at the hotel lobby around noon where would head out for our planned activities of the day.

We met in the lobby and 2 tour guides and our directors awaited us. The two tour guides were very nice ladies from Granada. Our first activity was to visit the Capilla Real,  the Royal Chapel of Granada. This place may be the highlight of Granada for me, I’ll obviously explain why. 

The Capilla Real was constructed between 1550 and finished in 1517, a year after King Ferdinand II’s death. It was constructed to house the remains of the monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella who wished for their remains to be housed in Granada, and heres why…

So as I promised, I will explain who Ferdinand II and Isabella are. Ferdinand and Isabella  are two former monarchs of Spain, the King and Queen. Ferdinand was the monarch of the region of Aragon and Isabella was the monarch of the region of Castille,  during the Arab occupation of the Iberian peninsula they were separate kingdoms. The two monarchs were married in 1469 and united the two crowns of the two most powerful kingdoms in Spain that had fought back against the Arab occupation and resumed their independence. Collectively, Ferdinand and Isabella became known as the Catholic Monarchs because of their Catholic heritage and later Catholic endeavors. Now for the interesting part; upon their marriage and the unification of the two kingdoms the dynamic duo set out to re-conquer all of Spain from the Arabs, and they succeeded. They were the ones who took back Cordoba, Granada, and largely all of Spain, dismantling the Arab nation of Al-Andalus. They were the leaders of the Spanish Inquisition and expelled all the Jews and Muslims from the country in an effort to re-christianize Spain and bring back the heritage that was imposed upon since 711. They went about converting tons of Arab/Muslim significants to Catholic/Spanish entities in order to recreate the kingdom that was lost in the 711 invasion. Under Ferdinand and Isabella the Spanish people were united under one monarchy and “Spain” became to take form. 

To me, Ferdinand and Isabella are perhaps 2 of the most important people to have ever existed. Think about it…without their efforts to take back the Iberian peninsula from the Moors who knows what Spain would look like today, or the rest of history for that matter. I’ll tell you right now that they would probably be speaking Arabic in what is now Spain had the Catholic monarchs not taken back the peninsula. What’s even more exciting/interesting is that you know that guy Christopher Columbus who we give credit to for “discovering” America? Well, he was commissioned by Ferdiand and Isabella, as were so many other explorers. Ferdinand and Isabella were the ones who largely started the exploration phase to the new world. As you know Hernan Cortes would come later, and so would Fransisco Pizzaro etc. All those guys probably wouldnt have gone to the Americas had Ferdinand and Isabella not taken back the peninsula and commissioned these explorations. So…would we even be in the U.S. had Ferdinand and Isabella not done what they had? I dont know…tricky question. You have to think of the trickle down effect that history has— literally the actions of 1 or 2 people can change all of history, and that is exactly what Ferdinand and Isabella did, changed history, and largely created the world we live in today. Who knows what languages or cultures would exist in Central and South America today had the Spanish conquistadors/explorers not gone across the Atlantc, and who knows what Spain would be like today had Ferdinand and Isabella not retaken the peninsula…”Spain” probably would not exist as a country. Incredible.

Anyway, Ferdinand and Isabella have their tombs here in Granada in this Chapel. They wanted to be laid to rest in Granada because of the huge significance the city/region had in their lives and their endeavors of retaking the Iberian peninsula. No photos are allowed in the chapel, but I will tell you its pretty great, small, but great, and you can see the tombs of Ferdinand and Isabella. Incredible feeling to stand 6 feet away looking at the iron caskets of 2 people who influenced history and the world we live in to such a degree. A pamphlet from the chapel even reads that the chapel “has a deep historical and human meaning not only for the Spanish, but also for other European and American visitors”…they couldn’t be more right about that. 

After visiting the Capilla Real we had some time for lunch before our next item on the agenda, the Alhambra. A few of us opted for kebabs, which were delicious, sat and digested, then headed for our meeting place to meet the group to walk to the Alhambra.

The Alhambra

So, like I said, our next stop was the Alhambra. As defined by wikipedia, the Alhambra is the following: “a Palace and a fortress complex constrcuted in the 14th century by Moorish rulers” (the Moors are the Arab/Berber Muslims who invaded in 711 and took over Spain). That is probably the best way of putting it, because I myself by the end of our visit wondered what the Alhambra really was, it was just such a mix of things, but I think that does it pretty good justice. 

The Alhambra was completed toward the end of Arab rule in Spain in the mid 1300s, the fortress is in a sense its own city, within Granada. The Alhambra served as the insertion point for Moorish palaces given the great location on top of a hill, well fortified. The Moorish palaces are incredibly beautiful; the architecture is stunning, and the Arabic writing that covers much of the walls is incredible to see. The palaces are so advanced for their time; including an irrigation system which also served for cooling and heating purposes. The palaces are works of art, and the Alhambra as a whole is something incredible to see; just a huge fortified area with guard towers and massive walls. On the inside of the walls rest the palaces and former military installations. Since the Alhambra was constructed so late in the game of the Moorish 800 year rule over Spain, it soon fell into the hands of the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella. 

The Moorsh ruler Muhammad XII of Granada surrendered the city of Granada to the Catholic Monarchs in 1492, so the Alhambra was never attacked. The force of numbers that Ferdinand and Isabella had arrived with was enough to warrant the surrender of the city. After the city’s surrender, the Alhambra became property of the Spanish monarchy, and used as such. Some portions of the Alhambra became used by Spanish Christian rulers who followed. A palace for Charles V of Spain was constructed within the walls of the Alhambra, and is still there today. Very interestingly, as we know, Ferdinand and Isabella started the Spanish Inquisiton when they set out to take back Spain from the Moors- the inquistion included expelling Muslims and Jews from the peninsula and reconverting the land to its Christian roots. However, even though these are the facts, Ferdinand and Isabella also spared so much of Moorish histroical significance…They didnt destroy the Alhambra, or its Moorish palaces, and they didnt destroy the Mezquita-Catedral in Cordoba at any point. Ferdinand and Isabella may have gone to great lengths to restore christianity to the peninsula and expel the Muslims and the Jews, but at the same time they respected the cultures that had come to flourish over such a long time in their the land.. This respect manifested in allowing the beauty of the Alhambra and Mezquita-Catedral to continue existing, and thats really the only reason you can see them still today, because they let them live so to speak. Pretty incredible to think about. 

The Alhambra with its palaces (both Moorish and Spanish), its gardens, military fortifications, and mix of culture is really something to see. In fact, I’ve heard its the most visited tourist attraction in Spain. Other things in Spain have definitely blown my mind a little more than the Alhambra, but I will say it is a incredible piece of history, and that perhaps I may be under-appreciating it a bit…Seeing a Moorish palace like that with such intricate workings of culture and religion is really incredible, and seeing how the Christian monarchs of Spain added on to the palaces instead of destroying them is something else. For instance, there are places in the Alhambra where Spanish monarchs used to sit…and these seats are surrounded by Arabic on the walls…incredible that these people had this mix in their history and lived side by side with the culture for so long, and still do. 

After the Alhambra we headed back to our hotel just to grab our change of clothes for our next activity…bathing suits. We were headed to a Arab Bath House in the city for some rest and relaxation as well as a Arabic cultural experience of southern Spain. 

We arrived at the bath house around 5:45 and were the only ones there, thankfully. The bath house is sort of like a sauna at the YMCA, people just come to relax, sit in some hot water, etc. We were offered a 15 minute massage for 12 euro, most everybody did it, I didnt though, and we hung out in the baths for about an hour and a half. The baths are a series of pools, each a different temperature, with one cold one in the middle. So you spend your time sitting in each until its temperature bores you, and move on to another. Its pretty relaxing, I wish it was a little more quiet than it was with 50 college students, but still nice. Everyone got their massages and then we headed back to the hotel to shower and be free for the rest of the night.

After showering everyone split up for dinner. Myself and a few other guys went out for what we called a “tapas bar crawl”. We simply went tapas bar to tapas bar for a beer and a plate of food. It was pretty cheap each place we went, no more than a couple euro at each. We did that for 4 or so rounds and were quite satisfied by the end. Around 11 we headed back to the hotel to meet everyone else and see what the game plan for the night was. We all knew of a few BC kids who were studying in Granada for the semester, so they were going to be our guides for the night. 

We ended up going to a club, I cant remember the name of it, but it is built into the side of a huge hill opposite of the Alhambra. Absolutely incredible view. I mean, absolutely incredible. The club had 3 rooms and a patio deck area outside that faced the Alhambra. At night, until the early morning hours, the Alhambra is lit up spectacularly. Unfortunately, I didnt have my camera, but it was such a beautiful sight. The club was a lot of fun, much cheaper than Madrid. 8 euro entry with a free drink…compare that to Madrid where its 15 or 18 entry with 2 drinks largely made of ice. We were there till pretty early in the morning and headed back to the hotel. By the way, the club was nowhere near anywhere you would think to find a club. We walked so much uphill through residential areas before just magically finding it.

On my walk back to the hotel I was with a group of 6 or so, and we were a bit separated, 3 in front 3 in back, I and 2 others in the back. With only 100 yards between us the guys in the front somehow managed to get into a fight with a Spaniard while walking back. I was going down the hill with my 2 friends and rounded a corner to find 2 guys kind of/sort of fighting. I thought it was 2 of our friends clowning around, but then realized it was one of our friends and some random Spaniard. We ran down to them and tried to separate them. I took the Spaniard and held him back, he wasnt a big guy, but sure was unhappy. I have no idea what happened, but all I kept saying to him was “its ok, its ok, calm down, I’m sorry”. He didnt seem to want my apology, and knew we were foreigners. The Spaniard had one guy friend with him and his girlfriend. I talked to the friend while holding the Spaniard back and explained our friend was drunk , it was a misunderstanding, and I’m sorry it happened, but we all dont need this right now. This was all in Spanish, so it was a bit difficult, but we all understood, the friend and I even shook hands saying lets move on. Eventually they got back together and started fighting and we were all taken to the ground trying to separate them. Out of no where a Security guard from somewhere showed up and we all dispersed. We kept walking back toward the hotel when about 10 minutes later comes the Spaniard again, yelling and screaming, with a stool in his hand. Again, he didnt look happy. We were now by the city center, much more populated than the hill we were in before. A national police car was coming by, and one of our friends Gabe had a good idea to flag it down first so we were the ones asking for help. After flagging them down 5 cops exited the car and we continued to walk on. The guy friend who got in the fight was way ahead, and I said keep walking, go back to the hotel, we’ll branch off another direction. The cops ended up grabbing us; 3 guys and a girl, and they also grabbed the Spaniard who was injured on his face. The cops asked what was going on and we gave them the truth, and said we didnt know where our friend was. They asked for our IDs and gave them our American licenses and copies of passports. The cop wasnt happy with that, but what could we do. The cop thought we were American students in Granada, but we explained we were only here for the weekend from Madrid. The cop didnt believe us, but luckily we had a university ID from Complutense, and one of the cops knew the university. At that point the cop was so frustrated realizing nothing was going to come of the situation and told us to get lost. The Spaniard was there with his friend and girlfriend the whole time yelling, but I heard him say to the cops it wasnt us, it was our friend. So I wasnt too worried that I was going to get locked up; we told the truth, we were trying to stop it all. Nonetheless, being held by the national police of Spain and questioned for 20 mins in Spanish on the streets of Granada isnt ideal. All in all, we made it out of that situation ok.

Sunday, March 4rd: Granada, and back to Madrid

We woke up around 9:30 again the next day on Sunday for a quick walk around some of the older parts of Granada with our tour guide. After our walk, we would be loading up in the bus and heading back to Madrid. We walked around in the hilly areas of Granada where its a bit older, more traditional Spanish living, more residential. We climbed up the streets to have wonderful views of the mountains, the Alhambra. At one lookout point there was a palm tree in front of us, and in the background view were the Sierra Nevada mountains with snow on top…what a view: A palm tree, and a mountain with snow. Our tour guide explained that in the mountains surrounding Granada there is great skiing, and they ski until May about. Some people will ski half a day, and then get in the car to drive the short distance to the coast in the town of Malaga to go to the beach…skiing and beach, in the same day…fantastic. We explored some more outlook points, a newly constructed Mosque on the hill, a little area by a lookout point where gypsies sell some craft goods etc. One cool place we stopped by was a convent in Granada. This particular convent I believe is all women, all women who dedicate their lives to God, and when they make that decision they enter into this convent…and never leave. Thats right, they never leave the building…its s brick building, hardly any windows, but I think they have a patio on the inside for them to have fresh air and sun etc. These women never leave though, and they never see anyone from the outside, nor does anyone else see them. The members of the convent sell homemade pastries out of their building, through a little wooden turnstile thing. You knock or ring some bell, they unlock it, they turn the turnstile to show you the pastries, you choose, put in money, and they turn it back. All of this is done without seeing them, but you can speak to them. Absolutely mind blowing that these people have dedicated all their life to God, and have consciously chosen this life for themselves, a tip f my hat goes to them. 

After our walk we had some time for lunch, then loaded up onto the bus for a 5 hour trip back to Madrid. We arrived in Madrid around 8 o clock and all headed back to our homes to get ready for school the next day. The weekend was great, loved Andalucia, loved Cordoba and Granada. 

Lisbon, Portugal

Thursday: February 23rd, 2012

So this weekend I went to Portugal. 3 nights at a hostel in Lisbon with 2 day trips to other towns nearby. I will start out by saying that Portugal is one of the most under-appreciated countries I have ever been to. Back in the U.S. we just don’t hear all that much about Portugal, or meet too many people from there either, and to most Americans the Portuguese language probably makes them think more about Brazil than it does Portugal. So, all in all, Portugal was absolutely amazing, and I would go back any day. 

Day 1: Thursday 

Having learned from my trip to Paris that 6:30 AM flights and sleeping in the airport the night before is not all that fun we decided on an afternoon flight, from Madrid to Lisbon, at 2:55. What a difference it makes to be able to sleep in and leisurely make your way to the airport with no grogginess weighing you down. I was traveling with 4 others: Alissa, Alex (Fitch), John, and Jess. There was a group of 7 others coming in on Friday that booked our same hostel. So all in all 12 of us BC Eagles, a great group of people, not too few, and not too many. 

We arrived at the airport and hung around at the gate for 45 mins or so before boarding. We flew AirEuropa this time and I will say AirEuorpa is ten times better than RyanAir. They assign seats, so there was no battle to the death over getting into line early at the gate. John and I entertained ourselves in the gate-area with a tennis ball I had brought along and 2 cardboard boxes we found next to a trash can in the terminal. We made a game called “box ball” in which we had to kick the ball off the wall on a angle and have it go into the other’s box. Endlessly entertaining, and we waited to be the last ones to board so we could keep playing. People were watching us, they thought it was funny, and no one seemed to care either- security guards, gate agents, cleaning staff…theres just no rules in Europe, if something makes you happy, and doesnt overly disturb the peace, you can probably do it. 

The flight to Lisbon was about an hour and fifteen minutes, and we arrived 10 minutes ahead of schedule. My ticket says depart at 2:55, arrive in Lisbon at 3:05…one hour time difference, awesome. Not only did I get to sleep in, but also didnt waste the day by taking a afternoon flight, since when we would land in Portugal it would only be 3 o’clock!

We arrived in Lisbon after our short flight with an absolutely beautiful descent. The water-land combo from the air was an absolutely beautiful sight. All my life I have never lived further than 15 minutes from a body of water, so being in Madrid for 6 weeks without having seen an ocean or anything I think made me stir crazy or something because I just couldn’t get enough of the sights. 

A quick into to Lisbon and Portugal:

As most of you know Portugal and Spain make up the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal borders Spain on its eastern frontier, and on the country’s western side is the Atlantic Ocean. Lisbon, Portugal’s capital is situated on the Northern bank of the Tagus River. The Tagus is the longest river in the Iberian Peninsula stretching 645 miles- from well inside Spain as far as Madrid/Toledo, running through Spain across Portugal, and emptying into the Atlantic Ocean. The “river” bank where Lisbon sits really to me just seemed like the Atlantic because when you look to your right if you are facing south in the city you can see the Atlantic quite clearly. The Portuguese beaches on the Atlantic Cost are only a 30 minute train ride from Lisbon. Spain and Portugal share similar histories as Iberian neighbors- they both were part of the Visigoth kingdom prior to the 8th century. Then in the 8th century the Moors, whom I have talked about extensively in the past, arrived from Africa and took over the entire Iberian Peninsula. When the Moors were defeated, and the Iberian Peninsula reclaimed, Spain and Portugal went their separate ways with their respective monarchies. Portugal’s monarchy was deposed in 1910, and today the country remains monarchy-less as a republic. The rich history of the Portuguese monarchy is still very much alive as there are tons of castles, forts and places sprinkled throughout the country. 

Portugal is incredibly beautiful, and very colorful. I think any land that borders water has an edge that makes it extra pretty. My theory is that the sunlight reflecting off the water just gives the air a stunning ambience of light unlike any other. You can tell in Lisbon that the city was made to be a coastal one, it just has a bit of a nautical feel to it- architecture, building colors, walkways along the river etc. We stayed in the city center, right along the river. This is the most popular place in Lisbon, the rest of the city is really a commercial/residential outskirtish area, still very nice though.

Portuguese people are some of the nicest I’ve ever met. They just have a very relaxed and laid back way about them. Portugal the guys in the Colegio described as “not very important” in terms of a European country. I sort of see what they mean- Portugal never really did much on the European continent, they kind of jut did their own thing, secluded a bit, only share a border with Spain with whom interaction wasnt all too heavy from what I understand. There isnt a whole lot to “see” in Portugal of grand historical significance, just a lot of pretty stuff. Portugal’s biggest world endeavor I believe from my studies was their presence in Africa during their explorations in the 1400-1700s. They really went to town on Africa, and headed over to the Americas thereafter with slaves. However, that history doesnt rest on Portuguese land really. Portugal is a sea-fairing nation, so their history is largely nautical. When you go to Portugal, usually Lisbon, you take trips elsewhere, and home-base it in Lisbon. See the pretty things, get to know the culture as best you can, and just take it all in. Lastly, from what I understand, Portugal is very well known for its hospitality, its “housewives” who supposedly love to cook and clean and things like that, and their towels…yes, their towels. The guys at the Colegio all told me to get a towel from Portugal, since theyre apparently the best in the world. I thought they were pulling my leg, but then a Spanish girl friend of mine told me as well. In Lisbon we did find a towel store…I swear to you, all towels. They didnt seem that different, but interesting nonetheless. 

Anyway. So we arrived in Lisbon at 3 PM, got outside the terminal to the drop-off/pick-up area, and thus began our time in Portugal. 

Portugal might be my favorite journey in Europe because of the sheer nature in which we conducted the trip- winging it. When we stepped off that plane we had absolutely no plan, had absolutely no idea where we were or where we were going. All we knew was that we had a hostel booked in a great location. Other than that, nothing. We didnt plan a single thing. I disallowed Alissa from making any sort of itinerary like she had for Paris, I just wanted this trip to flow. Don’t get me wrong, Paris was great, and you need an itinerary to see what you need to see in Paris, but Portugal is different. From what we were told before our trip you kind of just have to let Portugal happen, there are things to see, and you’ll figure it out there. We got outside to find a way to get to the Hostel, and this was the only research I had done really- I knew that the bus number was Bus 91. Still no idea where to get it though, or what stop to get off at. I asked a police officer outside where the bus was, and we were right by the bus stop luckily. For 3.50 euro we hopped on the bus for a 25 minute ride through Lisbon down to the river/city center. I knew the name of the street the Hostel was on and told the bus driver that much and he was kind enough to tell us when to get off and point us in the right direction. 

By the way- language wise, none of us speak a word of Portuguese. However, we were told by the guys at the Colegio that we can speak spanish to them, and they will more or less understand, but that we may or may not understand the Portuguese they will regurgitate back at us. Portuguese is a very interesting language. It has a lot of similarities with spanish, hence why we can speak it to them and they will understand at least some basis, but it is also extremely different from spanish at the same time. Audibly, Portuguese sounds so bizarre. To me it sounds a lot like Russian actually, or some Slavic language. For as many similarities in vocabulary the language shares with spanish there are infinitely many more words who’s origin I can’t even begin to fathom. For instance “obrigado” means thank you. Many more people in Portugal speak english though than in Spain, so if spanish didnt work english was a good bet. 

We got to the hostel around 4 o clock and checked in. We stayed at the “Home” hostel in Lisbon. The Home Hostel has to be one of the nicest hostels I have ever stayed in, and probably ever will. We found it on hostelworld.com for i think 11.50 or 12 euro a night, and its location seemed great, along with fabulous ratings. The lobby actually had a plaque from hostelworld.com ranking it to be number 4 in the world in its class as a medium hostel. The people who worked there were so friendly, which we would find out is really a Portuguese trait in general. A lovely girl around our age was behind the desk and spoke fluent english. She honestly could not have been nicer and started telling us where we should go for a bite to eat, giving me a city map, the whole low down. The hostel had wireless internet, 2 computers in the lobby, a living room attached to the lobby with a big tv, a FREE laundry service (drop it off by midnight and its there in the morning), free towel service, lockers in your room with a free lock and key, it was just a great place. Our room was a 6 room bunk bed, 5 of us were in there and never had a 6th roommate arrive. The rooms were so nice, the beds large enough to fit two people, comfortable, with clean sheets, pillow case and comforter. The hostel was a 1 minute walk from the main city square, 2 minutes from the river, a supermarket next door, a locked door with a security guard at night, free breakfast, dinner at night for 8 euro which consisted of a homemade Portuguese meal made by a lovely senior citizen woman. Everything was just fantastic. I cant talk about this place enough, but Im going to stop and move on. If you ever go to Lisbon, stay here. 

After getting our stuff into our rooms and all that stuff we headed out to walk around a bit and explore. I had the map with me the lady gave us, and the city center in which we were staying is really not all that large, and extremely easy to navigate. By the end of the weekend we knew the city center area very well, and I could probably give someone directions to a main attraction from just about anywhere in the city center. We walked to the main city square and just took a look around- all the cafes, pastry shops, stores, the fountain, a statue/monument, pigeons, really a great atmosphere. The city square is nestled between two hills. On the top of one is a Castle which I will elaborate more on later, and on the other the ruins of the Igreja do Carmo, a medieval and gothic convent/church destroyed in Portugal’s horrific 1755 earthquake which destroyed just about the entire city/countryside. The earthquake historians estimate to be somewhere between 8.5 and 9.0 on the scale, and as if that wasnt enough, fires and a tsunami followed the earthquake. 

We decided to walk up toward the Igreja do Carmo. Lisbon is extremely hilly, and all the roads are cobblestone or brick or tiles. Portugal is very big on its colorful tiles, John even felt compelled to take a picture of the intricate sidewalks/roadways that were beautiful tiles. It must have taken tons of work to lay these streets. We started walking up hill, winding around roads to find the Igreja. On our way we stumbled upon a huge iron structure with a line of people at its base. We found out the structure was an elevator. The story is the elevator was built in 1902 to facilitate easier movement between an upper and lower section of the town. Now the elevator is a tourist attraction at 148 feet. You have to pay 5 euro to get to the top which has a lookout of the city, but we werent compelled to spend 5 euro for an elevator ride, so we continued on winding through the streets to get to the stop instead. After that journey I understand why they built the elevator. We went up and up and made our way toward the hillside where we figured the Igreja to be. Eventually we got there, the Igreja sits next to the headquarters of the national police, and a armed guard stands outside there in a little post holding a very shiny and very sharp sword. The Igreja unfortunately was closed, but we found a walkway running alongside of the structure that looked promissing, so we took that route. It ended up going right up to the top of the elevator shaft, where people exit and can walk off to the upper part of town. To our very pleasent surprise, the lookout platform actually sits above the elevator’s highest point, and you take a spiral staircase to its top. So, we got to have the great view of the city we wanted, without paying the 5 euro elevator ride, and got to take a nice walk around to get there, not bad. The view was great, could see the whole city center, the river of course, the Atlantic not far off, and we could clearly see the other side of the river on the Southern bank. A multitude of ferries shuttle across, and there is also a massive bridge connecting the two river banks- the bridge looks like the golden gate, but not nearly as large. The sun was setting so it was beautiful, the sun set behind the bridge on the river which was very pretty. 

After snapping some photos we headed back down to the water-level section of the city. Saw some nice and old churches along the way as per usual in Europe. We headed down to the river to stroll along the bank. There is a beautiful square/plaza right on the river with a magnificent arc that leads into the city center streets where our hostel is, and it leads out to this plaza. Then there is a great statue in the center facing the water. We went down to the water where there was a staircase that just descended into the water, sort of like Venice, Italy, and people are sitting on the steps looking out to the river or down toward the bridge, watching the boats pass by, very pretty scenery. It was getting darker and we were getting hungrier so we set out to find some dinner. 

I wish we could say we had some great Portuguese dinner, but we ended up having Italian. The girls were just too hungry and didnt want to walk anymore, so we settled for a nice little Italian place. It was way early to eat by our standards, I think 7 o clock or so, way too early for our new Spanish meal time style. We were the only ones in the restaurant, the Portuguese eat late too, so we just had a nice relaxed dinner. It was actually incredible Italian food, so I was very pleased. One thing I have to comment on is that in Portgual you are charged for the bread they put on the table, which you dont know as a tourist. We were given bread on the table, and even bruschetta which was very tasty. Well, when the bill came we were surprised to find we were charged for both the bread and the bruschetta. Lesson learned, but Portugal I also have to add is pretty cheap, definitely cheaper than Madrid is in terms of food and drink. We found throughout the weekend that everywhere we ate was the same way- they would give you bread, cheese, and usually some type of Portuguese hors d’ourves which were very tasty. You get charged for what you eat, and if you dont eat any, you’re obviously not charged, and they will re-use them I’m almost positive. In the U.S. if something touches the table its “used”, thrown out even if not touched. Not here though, if you dont eat it they wont charge you and they’ll put it on another table most likely. 

We finished up dinner and headed back to the hostel to chill out for a while. In the off hours the city center district of Lisbon is very quiet, its sort of weird in a way. You wonder where all the people are. During the day its busy enough, but in the late afternoon early evening its like a ghost town. We joked and asked “where is the population”? We got back to the hostel and chatted with the people at the desk for a bit, got some tips on things to do, but this whole winging it thing was really working out well. We just didnt have a care in the world, everything was back in Madrid waiting for us, school etc, but here we knew no one, had no obligations to anyone or anything, no time constraint really- if it looked nice we would venture toward whatever it was. 

We chilled out at the hostel for a while and waited for the night to kick in. We decided to head to Bairro Alto for the night, a district of the city center. Alto in spanish means high, as in altitude, or tall if youre talking about someone, and in Portuguese its the same. Barrio is the spanish word for neighborhood/district, and bairro is the Portuguese word for the same. So literally Bairro Alto means higher district, which is pretty suiting considering it is higher up than most of the city center. Its at the top of the elevator, then a little higher up still. Bairro Alto is a very nice area, popular for its nightlife and restaurants. Very small streets with lots of bars and restaurants sprinkled along the side. The establishments are pretty tiny themselves, the bars are just the one small room with the bar itself and thats about it. We had gone to Bairro Alto earlier in the day in the evening, and it was dead, but we were assured to go back at night and it would be busier, which was very true. At 11:30/midnight the streets became pretty flooded with people; our age, younger, older, everyone. The bars were opening and people were grabbing drinks inside and coming out into the streets to drink and talk etc. Very different from the scene in Madrid, but charming all in itself. We hopped around some bars, walking along the streets taking it all in having a good time. One guy eventually stopped us, he was a promoter for a bar, and started to talk to us. We ended up getting friendly with him, his name was Christian, he was from Germany originally, stood at about 6’4 and was a people person to say the least, and a little on the flamboyant side. He was a really nice guy, told us about his living in Lisbon for 3 years as a promoter just living his life, makes a decent living. Christian speaks 7 languages- English, French, German, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, and Croatian. I almost didn’t believe him, but then I spoke to him in what little Russian I know, and he understood, and responded correctly, so I knew he was legit. He invited us into the bar he was working at for some free drinks, he explained how he wasnt like the “rest of the promoters”, which I have heard before, but he seemed nice enough. He explained he doesnt hound people or drag them into his bar, he talks to them, etc blah blah. We ended up ordering a drink so he would get a check mark for the night, stayed for a bit talked some more with him and some other people, then headed out. He told us of another bar to go to he would be at later, so we intended on doing that after some more walking around.

We walked around some more and went in a few other bars. We ended up tacking on 3 Canadian guys and 2 girls from Miami Ohio to our group that we ended up bonding with in a bar. We told them to come along to the other bar Christian had told us about. We found Christian at that other bar, got another free drink from him, chatted some more, snapped some photos, and we headed out again. We ended up splitting off around 2 AM. John and I headed back to the hostel, and the girls went out with the Canadian guys. I usually wouldnt leave them alone, but the guys seemed nice enough, after all, they were Canadian, and Canadians dont have a big track record for being violent or criminals, so what the heck. Fitch stayed in since he has been sick the past few days, so John and I returned to him in his slumber, and we climbed into bed ourselves to be ready for tomorrow. 

Day 2: Friday 

We woke up at 9 AM on Friday and grabbed our free breakfast downstairs in the kitchen which goes from 8 to 10. Our other friends were landing at the airport around 10 AM and would be at the hostel around 11 or so. The 5 of us decided to head up to the castle here in the city center on the hill before their arrival, and we would meet them at the hostel around noon after they settled in. 

The castle’s name is the Castelo de São Jorge. This castle was built in the mid 11th century during the Moorish occupation of the Iberian Peninsula. The castle is up on top of the hill, the area most difficult to access by enemies. The reason for its construction was to house military troops, but also, in case of attach, to house the elite of the city. The castle was never meant to be a residence for monarchs though, and thats quite evident by its several high towers that look out at the river, the ocean, and the rest of the mainland. It was clearly a military fortification. According to archaeological findings, however, evidence shows that this hilltop was inhabited possibly as early as the 6th century BC, maybe even earlier. Scores of different empires have come to the top of this hill historians claim, including the Celtics, Greeks, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, and others, all prior to the Moors. The castle’s towers which you can climb up to the top of offer beautiful views, and its definitely a cool feeling to walk around and think about the soldiers who once were there. They have a lot of cannons set up around the fort too from different time periods. I cant imagine being one of the guards atop of one of the towers looking out at the Atlantic or the river and seeing an enemy armada approaching, and it being your job to ring the bell or whatever it is to alert the fortress. The castle was worth the 4 euro to get in, you walked through history. 

After about an hour and a half at the castle we headed back down the hill to the hostel to meet the others. Again, this winging it thing has been great, just doing as we please. My friends think I’m funny though and that I am on speed, because when I wake up in the morning when were traveling I want to see everything and get moving, no lolly-gagging or putzing around. I always walk pretty far ahead of the group and lead the way so that I can scope out the next turn so we dont waste time figuring out which way to go. I walk much faster than the others, so it works out. Like I said, they think I’m on speed, but in the end they thank me, because if I didnt get their asses moving we would never get anywhere. 

We got back to the hostel and found the others who were checking in. They couldnt get in the room till 3, and it was noon. So we had them put their stuff in our room, and we decided on our next move- we wanted to go to the beach, on the Atlantic coast.  We heard there was a beautiful beach area about 40 minutes away by train for just 4 euro round trip, and that was that, we were going. 

We changed into bathing suits or gym shorts, got towels, and set out for the train station about 15 minutes away walking. I had my finger in everyones back to get them moving, I wanted optimal time at the beach. It was absolutely gorgeous out, approaching 75 degrees with not a cloud in the sky. We got to the train station and just missed a train by a minute, but the next one was only twenty minutes. There was a supermarket right there in the train station so we went in there and grabbed lunch. I got a nice sandwich and a bottle of water for 2 euro. A liter and a half of water was a mere 50 cents, couldnt go wrong. We waited for our next train and hopped on board to our destination- Cascais.

Cascais is a beautiful place, an old fishing village, now more so a destination for beach goers. A series of medium size beaches are scattered along the coast line, ending where the rocks stick out, then another beach begins around the bend of the rocks. There was a nice rock face flattened out on the left side of the beach you could stand on and look out into the ocean or down the beach. The waves would crash into it and splash up really high which was cool to watch and get wet if you went up there. There was another “staircase” that simply descended into the water for people to sit on at different levels. The beach was just beautiful and it was so warm out. The water was a bit cold, but no colder than a cold ocean day at home down the shore. We just had to go in, we were on the other side of the Atlantic ocean, same ocean I swim in obviously in Jersey, just on the other side. That itself was such a cool feeling. I remember being on the beach and smelling the ocean, it smelt just like home. Other seas or oceans dont usually remind me of home like that, but since it was the Atlantic, on the European side, I was getting the same water, the same smells. About 5 of us guys dove in and splashed around for a while, it was so so so so so refreshing. I drank some, I always do that whatever ocean or body of water I’m in, I dont know why, but thats what I do. When I get home to Jersey at breaks I always drink some of the sea water. Not a lot, just a couple gulps, makes me feel more connected I guess. There was this really nice dog on the beach that had a tennis ball, and he kept coming up to us for us to throw the ball, so I had a blast with that for a good 15 or so minutes, nice dog, didnt see the owner until the end who was appreciative for us playing with him since I think she got tired of throwing the ball. The dog I swear had a concept of waves, because he would be farther into the water’s edge than I and let the ball go, then a wave would take it to me, smart dog. 

After a while at the beach of just relaxing and soaking up the sun we ventured down toward the docks/marina that had a fort looking thing at the end of it. It turned out to be some old palace, apparently the Portuguese monarchs enjoyed Cascais a lot as well and frequented the area in the 19th cenitury, built a small palace too. We walked around more and decided around 5 o clock to get back to the train to get a dinner at some restaurant that was recommended to us in Bairro Alto. It was one of our friends, Sarah’s, birthday, so it was going to her birthday dinner, and her Dad had told her to use his credit card and treat us all to dinner. We were excited for a nice free meal. 

We got back to Lisbon, 40 minute train ride back, both ways was beautiful along the Tagus river. We got back to the train station, went in the supermarket and picked up some wine (which I will elaborate on later) and head back to the hostel to get ready for dinner. After getting ready we headed to Bairro Alto to find the restaurant. Fitch’s brother is a pilot for Continental, and he comes to Lisbon often, so this was a place he recommended. Well, it turns out the place was closed for construction, so we instead were lured into another restaurant by a promoter. Yes, restaurants have promoters too, they sit on corners, well dressed, and go up to people giving them the scoop on their restaurant. It doesnt mean the place is bad or anything, its just how they do things. We were taken to a very typical Portuguese restaurant, it was dinner and a show. A nice Portuguese singer girl person a little younger than us, and a guitarist. The girl’s dad also was a singer and performed a few numbers. Very nice, dinner was good, Portuguese food is nice. It was a steak stuffed with ham and cheese, not bad at all. It wasn’t all too pricey, but definitely not somewhere we would have gone by ourselves without Sarah’s Dad’s offer to pay. I joked at the end of the meal saying “Watch, they dont take credit cards or something”…well, my joke wasnt that funny, because it turned out to be true. They didnt take credit cards…We dished out 20 euro a piece and paid for Sarah too as her birthday present. It was a good dinner though, worth the price. 

After dinner we headed back to the hostel for our wine. I’ll explain Portuguese wine here. Portugal is the most under-appreciated wine making country I think. Their wine is excellent, and they take A LOT of pride in it. It is also dirt cheap. They have something called Port, which is a wine and brandy mix, only found really in Portugal Ive been told, very good, high alcohol content, delicious. Portugal apparently has some of the best wine in the world, and cheese too. However, were sheltered in America, and Portugal never gets the fame it deserves it seems on our side of the Atlantic…or even in Europe really, I’ll explain that further in a bit.

After lounging at the hostel for a bit we went back out to Bairro Alto for another night. I’ll keep it brief by saying the night was the same as the other one for the most part, bar hopping in the district, found Christian again, got some more free drinks from him, just hung around had a great night. Went back to the hostel at some point, and we decided on a 10 AM wake up. 

Day 3: Saturday February 25th

We woke up at 10 AM, missing breakfast, but thats ok, we wanted something more today. We had decided that now our plan for today was to go to another place we were highly recommended to go, the town of Sintra. The town was a 40 minute train ride a little bit north of Lisbon and inland. We went out for a breakfast lunch brunch thing, killed about an hour doing that, and by noon we headed to the train station, a different one than the other station, still walking distance. We got to the station at 1 PM, and there was a 1:08 train. We all got our tickets by 1:07 and 50 seconds according to the clock next to the platform. I ran through the gates and slid on the platform to the door of the train just as it closed. We missed it, but thats ok, another one in twenty minutes. We went downstairs where there was a Starbucks and sat there to wait for the train. 

We got on the next train and headed to Sintra. Not the same pretty ride as to Cascais, but still nice to go through the countryside a bit. Portugal is big on apartment buildings outside of Lisbon it seems. I didnt see too many houses, just lots of buildings with tons of clothes on railings and clotheslines. 

Sintra was names a world heritage site by UNESCO in 1995, and is known for its 19th century Romantic architecture and landscapes, as well as its mountains/foresty area. The three main things to see is a Moorish Castle built way way way up high on the mountain, the Pena National Palace, and the Sintra National Palace. The Pena and the Moorish Castle are on the same mountain top, so we decided that was a good bet, two birds one stone. We started walking toward the mountain and found a tourism center, they recommended taking the bus up to the top, but that was 5 euro…so we said we would walk….ha. ha. 

What a hike….literally. We ended up hiking up the mountain on the windy mountain road, hiking trails, forest, the whole bit, for over an hour and a half. It was beautiful, but a lot of work. We saw some pretty cool stuff along the way, and I love hiking, so this was great. I was hiking up a mountain in Portugal trying to get to a castle and a palace, not bad. Eventually we got to the castle first which sits below the palace. It was 6 euro to get in, so we opted to go to the Palace instead which was also 6 euro, and we were told is more impressive, and better views. So we hiked some more up and got to the Palace, exhausted, but it was well worth it. 

The Palace sits on the mountain top where a monastery of some kind used to be in the 1400s. This was destroyed though in that earthquake in 1755. In the 1830s the Portuguese monarchy acquired the land and the Moorish castle below. In 1842 they started constructing the palace, and it was finished in 1847, so its not that old, just very impressive. The construction is a mix of architecture- Gothic, Islamic,  Neo-Renaissance, and a few others. The best part of the Palace are the views. You can see all the way out to the Atlantic Ocean from up there, the whole of Sintra, the Castle below, everything. Seeing what we climbed up too was quite a hoot. 

We putzed around the Palace for a while and enjoyed the scenery, got some photos, and then decided to head down…this time by bus. Well, funny thing, the bus one way down cost I think around 2.30 euro or something….the 5 before was round trip…so by hiking up we saved…not a lot. The hike was great though, well worth it. Its not where youre going, its how you get there. 

We got down to the old historic town where we started out and decided to walk around before going back to the train station to have dinner at a place right next to the station we were told to eat at by the hostel people. John is a very big food and beverage guy, his whole family is too, and we ended up in a gourmet food shop,  a little tiny place with the most natural and best spices, jams, and wines you could ever ask for. Everything in this place was was produced by small farmers and vendors in the countryside of Portugal. The owner of the shop was really nice and had us sample just about everything. Ive never tasted things so good. I had a strawberry jam that I could have eaten by the spoonful for the rest of my life, the guy had vinegars made from different fruits, then their extracts, so many different things we never tasted in life. John immediately started buying up the store. He bought a 2007 Port that is supposed to be the best of the century according to wine experts, a bottle of Almond liquor which was the best alcohol I ever tasted, he bough a thing of jam I believe, some Ginja (Portugal’s famous cherry liquor ), and some other stuff. It amounted to a big bill, but his Dad would want the stuff he said. We had the stuff be shipped to Madrid since John couldnt take it on the plane tomorrow. We tasted some more jams, cheeses, sausage- everything was delicious, all made in Portugal. This brings me to the fact that Portugal has some of the best of this stuff Ive ever had, but it is so not well known in the States. The guy started to explain to us that Italy gets all the commercial fame for wine and everything, their the advertisers, but Portugal has some of the best in the world, its just no widely known in a way. Its a shame, because this stuff was great, all of it so natural and so delicious. I really got a taste of Portugal by being in this guy’s shop, we were there for about 45 minutes. 

Afterward we headed back toward the train station and went into the restaurant we were recommended to go to for dinner. Very authentic Portuguese, very good. I had a steak, a fried egg, a salad, some cheese and bread, and some hors d’ourves. John got rabbit, I tried some of that, not bad. Sarah ended up paying for our meal as a thank you for the other night, that was nice. We loaded back up on the train and headed back to Lisbon, it was dark, and I fell asleep on the train. We were all exhausted from the trek up the mountain. 

We got back to Lisbon and headed back to the hostel, headed to the supermarket, got more delicious Portuguese wine, and just hung out in the hostel. Half of us had to be up at 7 for a flight, so I wasn’t looking to go out. We had a nice last night in Lisbon with each other, and that was that. 

Day 4: Sunday February 26th

Woke up at 7 AM for our flight. At the airport by 9. Lisbon airport is very nice, I think it must be new or something. Before our gate area there was a Burberry, Lacoste, Ferragamo or whatever it is, and a Emilio Zenga or whatever that is too, I just know their expensive. It was funny to see. Boarded our flight, and back to Madrid we were. Its funny how every time we return to Madrid we say its nice to be “home”. The more we leave and the more we return it feels more like home, since were coming back to where we “live” and where we understand the culture, more or less the language, the food, etc. 

School tomorrow.

Sunday: February 19th, 2012

My 5th week here in Madrid is coming to a close, so that means week 6 is about to start, obviously. The past 2 weekends I have opted to stay here in Madrid and just do Madrid stuff. After all, I am studying and living here, I dont want to be away from home too much, I like it here. I’m going to recount the past few days which include just some random stuff, and a day trip to Segovia, a city about a hour north of Madrid. Also, I am going to Lisbon, Portugal this coming Thursday and will be there until Sunday. A few of my good friends from here are going with me and I’m really excited to see another country, one I have never been to, and don’t speak a word of the language.

Class ends Tuesday

With the end of class on Tuesday, the weekend begins, strange I know. But that won’t last forever because this week my Prado class starts. Every Wednesday for one of my classes we have to go to the Prado museum for 2 hours at noon. Not the worst thing in the world, but it is 2 hours in a art museum. 

On Wednesday the 15th I hung around with some friends at the Colegio for a while, had lunch, and waited out some of the day. At 5:15 some BC students were meeting with our director to visit the CaixaForum Museum. So before 5:15 a few of us met up to go explore some Egyptian ruins near where I live.

The ruins are named Temple of Debod, and they are around 2,200 years old. I know what you’re thinking, the Egyptians never inhabited Spain, and you’re right. The story is that in 1960 there was a dam built on the Nile River in a town near the Temple of Debod where it originally was located. The construction of the dam posed a great threat to the Temple, and consequently UNESCO, a world heritage organization, called for the Temple to be saved somehow. The Egyptian government in 1968 donated the Temple of Debod to the Spanish government out of gratitude for their help in saving the Tenples of Abu Simbel from a similar tragedy. So now the Temple of Debod rests in Madrid. The temple is really something to see on the inside; the wall carvings are incredible. You always see that stuff in movies, but seeing it in real life is something else. I really want to go to Egypt now and see the pyramids and everything else. 

After our little excursion to the Egyptian temple we got on the Metro to go meet up with our director at the CaixaForum. I had no clue what the CaixaForum was other than a museum; no idea what kind or anything. Ill say this much; I usually never say that anything is a waste of time, and that I can usually find just about anything interesting. However, the CaixaForum had to have been be the biggest waste of time. Its a “modern” art museum. There are litterally white spheres in glass boxes, and thats “art”. Other “art” included a glass cube with condensation on its walls, a video of a guy side stepping around a square on the ground, a red light being projected onto the corner of a wall in a dark room…things like that. Thats not art. I read some of the descriptions, and the “inspiration” for some of them was intriguing, but for the big inspiration you were getting you should have constructed something else…I’m not even sure how long we were there, I ended up just trying to practice my spanish comprehension skills by listening intently to our tour guide. The coolest part of the place was that we got headphones and our tour guide talked quietly into a headset and we could walk around and listen to her. 

Segovia

On Friday the 17th myself and my friends Dan, Fitch, Ryan, Pat, and Jillian set out on a day trip to Segovia. Segovia is about a hour north of Madrid by bus, and is a city frequented by Madrid visitors for its history and special/one of a kind sites. Segovia is situated in the Castille and Leon region of Spain, one of Spain’s autonomous communities, and is the capital of the Province of Segovia. The region is the former Kingdom of Castille for those of you who know any Spanish history. 

Segovia is perhaps most well known for the Roman Aqueduct that rests in the heart of the city. The Aqueduct is considered to be one of the greatest surviving examples of Roman engineering in the world, along with another aqueduct in France. The date in which the Aqueduct of Segovia was constructed is not exactly known, but it is thought to have been built sometime between the second half the the 1st century AD and the 2nd century AD, making it over 2,000 years old. The Romans built it to transport water, obviously, thats what an aqueduct is after-all. At its highest point the aqueduct reaches 93.5 ft, and is 2,388 feet long in its visible portion within the city before extending around 20 miles to a river in the mountains. The aqueduct is absolutely incredible, and its construction impressive to say the least. How it lasted 2,000 years without ever faltering or needing significant modern repair is beyond me. The structure is not held together by any sort of mortar (cement glue paste stuff that usually holds bricks together), it is purely held together by geometry. About 35 arches were rebuilt in the 16th century after they were destroyed by the Moors overtaking of Spain, but other than that I am not aware of any other major repairs or renovations done to the structure, so it stands alone now for 2,000 years. One day though, I’m sure it will fall. 

The 2nd place we ventured to was the Cathedral of Segovia, or the Catedral de Santa Maria de Segovia. The Cathedral in Segovia is Gothic in style, and Roman Catholic in order. I will say that it is eerily similar to the Cathedral in Toledo, they even have the same name. The Cathedral in Toledo is far more impressive though, and some 200-300 years older, so I think that this Cathedral was a copy of the Toledo masterpiece. The Segovia Cathedral was built between 1525 and 1527 and was built to replace an earlier one destroyed during a revolt against Carlos V. The inside of the Cathedral is beautiful, and the columns and white brick are exactly the same as in Toledo. Toledo though is much wider, with 5 paths running length wise through it, and is also vastly more decorated with mosaics, sculptures, and stained glass. The Segovia Cathedral though is very pretty itself, and very nifty from the outside, I wouldn’t really have though it was a Cathedral though at first glance. Worth the 3 euro to get in, even though a German kid studying in Segovia told us not to go. 

Lastly, (yes, there are really only 3 major things to see in Segovia, a city of just 50,000 people) we ventured to the Alcazar of Segovia. The Alcazar is a castle to say the least, but has had many used over the years which I will get to. The Alcazar is built on the side of the city above a rock face and its exterior resembles the bow of a ship. The early history of Alcazar is a little foggy, but it was thought to have been used by the Romans as a fortress at the earliest. However, the structure you see today does not resemble Roman architecture in the slightest which is due to the fact that the fortress changed hands and changed uses so many times. Throughout the middle ages Alcazar was used as a palace- the residence of the monarchs of Castille, and a key defense of their kingdom. The sharp slate spires of the castle, typical of central European castles usually, were added on in 1587. The royal court of Spain eventually moved to Madrid and the fortress was transformed into a prison for over 200 years. The next move for Alcazar was made by Carlos III who transformed the fortress into the Royal Artillery School in 1762. That lasted for around 100 years until a fire in 1862 destroyed just about the entire structure. Twenty years later in 1882 the castle began to be restored to its somewhat “original” state and is now what you see today. The spires caps are all “new” since the old ones were destroyed in the fire, and from what I understand not much of what we see is original since the fire was so bad. The lower walls I believe are the Roman remnants though. In 1896 the Alcazar was made into a military college for the Ministry of War. Now, it is a “museum”. Perhaps most interesting to people is the fact that Sleeping Beauty’s castle at Disney Land is thought to have been modeled after or inspired by the Alcazar. 

After our 3 stops in Segovia we simply putzed around for a while, had some lunch, etc. We toyed with the idea of getting back on the bus to Madrid, but we were in no rush. We ended up finding a walking trail along the river that goes past the Alcazar and the rest of the city. It was a nice walk, a bit muddy, but well worth it because we got to see a different view of Alcazar from the front. Orignially we only saw the back of the fortress because in the city center that is where you walk up to it. We were so unimpressed at first thinking that the back of the Alcazar was the “castle”. However, we realized how wrong we were when we got to the front of it along the river, hundreds of meters below, and just outside the main city center. We found a church at the end of the walk which we went into, very nice, old, 1500s, nothing important about it though from what I gathered. We decided to head back toward the bus, and in doing so we found a path up a hill off to the right of the city and the view of the Alcazar. We were curious and wandered up the path to find that it was a semi hiking trail that ran along a hill on the side of the city. The views of the city were absolutely incredible, seeing the Alcazar and the Cathedral with the mountains in the background was quite the sight (picture above). It was a 2 km walk, well worth it along the city’s line, and it took us right around back to the city, sort of. We eventually found the bus terminal and got our tickets back to Madrid. We spend a good 8 hours in Segovia, and I was very pleased with each hour. 

Rest of the Weekend

Not much else happened the rest of the weekend. That Friday night back from Segovia the guys at the Colegio put on a big party in one of our function room places where we usually hang out with each other. They invited girls from other Colegios, but no guys, clever. It was a really fun time, all Spanish students and then 3 of us. We got to mingle and meet the girls that we share the dining hall with and get to know them better which was really nice. They seem to enjoy our presence just as much as the guys do, they really couldn’t be more friendly. I had a couple heart to heart conversations with some of the guys at the party, and they extended to me the sentiment of how happy they are to have us living with them. I expressed to them what a privilege it was for us to be here, and that living with them has been nothing but a great time. I really am so thankful to be living where I am, I truly think its the best possible place to live in terms of getting to know the language and the culture. The guys even said to us that we live in the “best dorm” and that they weren’t just saying that because it was their own. They are the only all-male dorm in Madrid associated with UCM, and they epitomize brotherhood to me. Each of them knows every persons name, major, and where they are from in Spain, 130 guys. They love each other like a family. The guys have expressed to us that with just about a month of being here we have become very close to them, and that by the time we leave in June we will without a doubt be “one of them”.