i'm gonna let it shine

wow - it has been a busy week! i started off monday with some studying for "midterm season" (which here consisted of one hour-and-a-half long spanish test) before meeting manuel, my language exchange buddy, for our first charla (chat). he was nice and we had fun talking about music and traveling. hopefully i'll get to see him again soon!

tuesday was the midterm and it was quite easy, as stanford spanish tests tend to be. then for lunch a group of us went to hare krishna, a buddhist monastery that shares their large-portioned vegetarian lunches with the public. for just 5 euros we had huge plates full of salad (with avocado!), fried eggplant, a delicious vegetable medley, brown rice, and apple tarts. we topped it off with a couple glasses of this lemonade flavored tea. it was awesome! i also enjoyed the pre-dining meditation - we got their early so i got to sit in on some chanting. it was really energetic and different than tassajara, but still awesome. then they concluded by explaining a little bit about their religious practices, particularly their chanting to krishna, all in spanish! it was quite an experience, and really made me miss monterey :)

wednesday wasn't super exciting, except that i got my grant proposal in, which is nice. now i've completed all of my bazillion applications for this season except for soco, which is no big deal because, knowing stuart, it has absolutely no bearing on whether or not he chooses me to be an ra.

thursday was busy, but fun mostly because it led to friday - the first day of our bing trip! we traveled west to extremadura, the region of spain closest to portugal. first we went to a monastery/castle - home of carlos I and later filipe II (his son). next we drove through the Parque Nacional de Monfragüe (it would have been a lot better to be walking) and stopping to walk a little bit down the road to view some birds. we saw lots of cigüeñas (storks) and buitres (vultures). it was interesting, but not really what i would have called a "nature experience" like they were claiming. i guess for the people walking down the road in heels it was...

which brings me to a little side note: there are several social groups here, and if you don't let them get to you, they are quite entertaining to observe. the most interesting is one we call the "pink ladies", despite the fact that they usually don't wear pink - even though they claim it's their favorite color. last night my friends and i were eating dinner at a picnic table and four or these girls came up started talking to us. it was totally like a scene out of grease where the popular girls start talking to the nice, smart kids for no apparent reason, then critique their food. a couple of them asked me what i was eating. when i replied a spinach and cheese crepe, they got all excited, only to complain about how disgusting it was when they realized it was creamed spinach, not fresh. another thing i find quite entertaining is that these girls were leggings as pants. now, i think leggings are a lovely addition to any outfit, but should definitely be worn with a skirt, shorts, or even under jeans for warmth. these girls wear nothing else but some sort of high fashion sweater and jewel-studded sunglasses that cover half of their faces. i can only assume they are trying to draw attention to their highly exposed buns as they saunter down the street.

anyway, back to adventures...

from the park we went to a farm where we had to get off the bus and chase cows off the road before we could get to the actual premises. there we found lots of black-hooved pigs, the specialty of the area. we saw all of the adorable little piglets running around trying to find their mothers for some milk. the constant motion of tiny hooves and swirling tails was so cute. then they took us inside and showed us how delicious these little piglets can be! even if i weren't vegetarian, i don't think i could have eaten them after seeing them squealing in the mud, but i suppose it is important to know where your food comes from.

during this farm adventure i made friends with our visiting professor's kids, two 4-year-old twin boys. they are the sweetest kids ever. they sat in front of me on the bus and i told them the purple pumpkin story as we drove to our hotel. all of this in spanish of course! it is a little intimidating to hear 4 year olds correcting my spanish (and laughing at me when i make mistakes) but i still love them. we arrived at our hotel in yuste - charles v's castle in the countryside. we really did spend the night in a castle! it was beautiful, complete with orange trees around the walls and storks on top. spaniards love their castle - i think i counted 6, mostly in ruins, on the drive in.

the next day we traveled to mérida. formerly known as augusta emertia (where maximus/russell crowe is from in the movie gladiator), it was one of the principal cities of the roman empire at its peak. we walked through the ruins of the theater and antitheater (where they had the lion fights) before heading to our hotel. it wasn't a castle, but it was still extremely beautiful and somewhat resembled the alhambra. the bings really know how to travel. after a large lunch we had a free afternoon. those of us that are actually interested in things other than getting wasted and partying (or running like 5 times a day *ahem - pink ladies*) went to visit the reservoir. driving there reminded me of my long drives with ward on the little roads of colorado to get to our field site this summer. it was a beautiful hilly countryside with a few trees, rabbits, and birds. i can imagine it filled with butterflies a little later in the season. we arrived at what appeared to be a large lake, climbed on the walls around it, and had rock-skipping contests (which i totally dominated thanks to dad and a few trips to yosemite). then we decided to see who could throw a rock the farthest. jordan did really well with a nice crow-hop, and we all kept launching rocks until we saw one land about twice as far as any of ours. then we turned around to see jerome and realized we can't really compete with our quarterback...

we took some more pictures and headed back to the city to see the ruins of the roman aqueduct, complete with many stork nests and mothers guarding their eggs. we watched the sun set as we walked back to the hotel. most people wanted to rest some before dinner, but jessica and i decided to continue on to see the museum of roman ruins. we went with our guide isidro, alycia (my louisvillian friend!) and renata, so there were more staff members than students. it was a nice private tour with the chance to look at and talk about exactly what we wanted to see. we saw the ruins of a roman house, several frescos and tiled-murals, coins, jewelry (which would still be in fashion today), and lots of statues.

finally we retired to the hotel to get dressed in our carnaval outfits (it was the first night!) and head out for dinner. the scene was a cross between halloween and a mediaeval art fair. there were boths with food and pastries (i got a baked potato!) and lots of little crafts for sale. kids were running around everywhere in halloween costumes. around midnight, just as i was heading to bed, a concert started in the square right outside my window. i fell asleep to what sounded a lot like rock songs from the 1950s.

sunday, the final day of the trip, we traveled first to cáceres. there we walked tiny sloped streets between the houses of the noble families, which weren't far off from castles. after lunch on our own we continued our journey to trujillo where we climbed the tower of the church of Saint Mary where nobles were buried. after viewing the city we walked up another street to the castle-fortress set on the edge of the old city for protection. we walked its walls as night guards would have done, taking pictures in every tower. finally we retired to the bus where most people slept through the 4.5 hour journey home. it was a great trip!

check out the pictures here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2175148&id=220245&l=ffa4d

pay my respects to grace and virtue

greece was incredible! our plane was late arriving on friday, but people were friendly on the metro and with a little help we made it to our hostel before dinnertime. as we set out in search of a restaurant, we saw a wall with some columns peeking out of the top up on a hill. someone wondered if there were some kind of ruins, but we were too tired and hungry to investigate. my friends ate the traditional mousaka while i had roasted red and green peppers stuffed with seasoned rice. we also shared a greek salad, which was delicious. we topped it off with baklava, which is way better in greece than anything you can find in america. then we went back to our apartment-style hostel and watched a little greek tv. we found a sherlock holmes movie in english with greek subtitles, so we actually understood what was going on!

the next day we woke up at 7 (6 spanish time) and walked over the the main office to eat before setting off to explore the ruins. at breakfast we met several other hostel residents including an exchange student from brazil living in paris, two from illinois living in salamanca, and a guy from san luis obispo. there was also a guy from canada who, like us, was only staying two days. when i mentioned that was a long trip, he clarified that he was actually on a larger trip around europe, but that still made the whole room laugh. after our toast with marmalade and nutella, we set out for the acropolis, only to discover alex's batteries were out of charge. we picked up some postcards while we waited for her to run back to the room, only to discover her other batteries only lasted about 3 pictures. (rechargeable batteries eventually die out after several years...) anyway, we wound around the acropolis looking and tons of partial columns and two ancient theaters, one restored and one still in ruins. they were really neat. it's amazing to try to imagine how the greeks built all of these things! then again, they probably had some strong men... being that it was valentine's day and we were a group of 5 girls, 4 of us single, we very much enjoyed all of the good-looking greek men, of which there were quite a few...

we finally made it to the top and climbed through some more columns to make it to the parthenon! unfortunately it was under restoration, so there was a lot of machinery blocking the view, but we still enjoyed the site. hundreds of pictures later, the five of us set off to go down the hill, walking around another, smaller, temple on the way down. then, since i was in the lead, we off-trailed a little bit and ended up on a pleasant hike down the hill complete with lots of trees and several strange piles of caterpillars on the path. not sure why they were there...

we found ourselves at the entrance to the greek agora - the marketplace if i remember my hata correctly. we explored the old church, climbed some trees, wandered around ruins labeled as the former locations of a prison, several temples, bathhouses, and other important buildings in the center of the city. it was so beautiful because not only are the ruins pretty, but it was all in the midst of trees and clovers sprouting up everywhere. it was refreshing to see so much green! after a quick walk through the agora museum, we found some lunch nearby. i had baked eggplant with feta cheese and a tomato and cucumber salad. the street vendors kept coming up to our little outdoor table offering things like flowers, flashlights, umbrellas, balloons, and sunglass. we also had a little boy (6 or 7 maybe) come up and start playing a tiny guitar-like instrument. later we were serenaded by what appeared to be the greek version of a mariachi band. catherine was elated!

we wandered through more of europe's narrow streets and found ourselves in plaka, the cute shopping districts my dad's friend had suggested. it was fun looking in the stores and finding souvenirs. we eventually wandered back to our hotel to drop things off before attempting to head to the seaside. this was an adventure...

we got on the metro only to end up going the wrong way, then back to where we started. everyone was staring at us like we were clueless americans, and it turned out we were. the metro was under construction. so we went out side and after some trouble got on a very crowded bus. we were worried about finding the right stop, but fortunately the nice woman next to us (pressing against my back as jessica and catherine smushed into my front) let us know when we were there. we took the metro the rest of the was to the mediterranean sea, only to discover that it was too late to catch a boat to one of the charming islands. we instead got directions to a beach and attempted to walk there. using landmarks and street signs, written in greek of course, with our map that was not in greek, we eventually found our way to this so-called beach. thank goodness i took physics in high school, only for the purpose of learning the names of some of those letters, which allowed us to try to match the symbols to the names we had on our map. the words "it's all greek to me" were definitely uttered more than once. the "beach" was actually a port with no sign of a coastline. when we asked the barista in starbucks, she assured us we were where we were trying to go, but there we no beaches around there. so we got some coffee to warm up and made our way back to the metro station in time to watch the sun set over a collection of very large cruise ships. finding our way back was much easier and we made it to the hostel with a few minutes to rest before heading out for dinner.

we ate at a place that was more italian than greek, but the food was still good. they also had someone playing the piano, and all of the tunes were familiar musical songs like edelweiss (sound of music) and maria (west side story). after dinner we decided to go for a walk and ended up at the parliament building at 11, just in time to see the changing of the guards! it was quite impressive in a ridiculous kind of way. their outfits (like all european guards i have seen) looked more fitted for clowns than government officials, complete with giant pompoms on the elf-like pointed tap shoes. they performed an interesting march - like synchronized swimming without water, slowing lifting their legs in unison before sweeping their feet on the ground and stopping their pompomed-tap shoes. finally they took their positions and a few of the tourists standing around ran up to take pictures with them. after seeing that they didn't get shot, we decided to do the same. satisfied with a very complete day, we headed back to our hotel for about 3 hours of sleep before heading back to the airport. it was an insane 48 hours, but totally worth it. i would love to go back when i have more time! gotta get to one of those islands someday...

now it's four more days of a school (and one spanish midterm) before we set off for our bing trip to extremadura, the region of spain nearest portugal. there are rumors that we are going to a pig farm to learn about the ham culture. should be interesting...

pics are up on facebook! (link at the top of this page on the right -->)

que mi alma no descanse

wow, so much to catch up on! sorry i'm a little behind on the blog; things have been so busy here! last weekend mom and em came to visit me! i was so excited i got to the airport like an hour before they did, but it was worth the wait! that night we went out for an authentic dinner of tortilla espanola (potato omlette), paella, and churros con chocolate. ¡que rico!

friday we went to toledo for the day. we went inside the giant cathedral and spent over an hour looking at everything there was to see. between mom's theological knowledge, em's historical knowledge, and my spanish, we could figure out everything! it was really neat. we spent the rest of the day trying to keep up with mom and we explored the ancient spanish city. it was the capital for a long time before madrid! we ended the day with a sampling of mazapan, the delicious almond sweet that is something like cookie-dough.

saturday and sunday we hung around madrid, seeing museums and walking in the park. we actually spent the majority of our time in this amazing vegetarian restaurant we found close to the hotel. we ended up eating there 3 times in 48 hours! it was so nice to see mom and em and get a little break from having to keep myself up here. i could just let down with them in the hotel room with our delicious greek yogurt that we kept on our balcony (aka refrigerator).

last night i went back to the same vegetarian restaurant with melissa and catherine. it was a fun girls night filled with yummy food, tasty sangria, and lots of laughs. this morning we got to school at 9am to head to el escorial, king filipe II's summer palace in the mountains. we saw the relatively modest living quarters and the pantheon that contains the tombs of almost all of the Catholic monarchs of spain. there is also a separate mausoleum for the children who were never rulers and the queens that did not produce children that were rulers. it was very interesting.

meanwhile the blizzard was raving outside as we were north of madrid and in the mountains, so it was quite cold. afterwards we went to el valle de los caidos, the memorial to the civil war and the site where franco is buried, but it was closed due to snow. it wasn't a complete loss though. watching the snow dust everything outside was so beautiful! the landscape reminded me of kentucky, specifically of gesthemany - i was actually missing the session retreats... there were even horses! and as we drove away we could faintly see the giant cross against the mountain through the swirling snow and fog.

tonight we're going to go to a tango show and then hopefully go salsa dancing! the weekends here are always so full of exciting adventures! tomorrow is the real madrid futbol game! it's going to be really awesome, if it's not too cold!

te quiero y te extrano!