Photos from Andalucía

As you can see to the right, new photos are up from the recent trip to Córdoba and Sevilla, and shortly, I'll be putting up the pathetically small amount of Rioja photos I have.

New Photos!

New photos are up from my trip to Cuenca on Friday. Also, a few photos from right here in Alcalá, very close to where I live. Check them out.

La aventura extremeña :: 3º parte :: Trujillo

Sunday morning brought us, the tired bunch we were from late night festivities on a long Saturday, on a short bus ride to Trujillo. What is in Trujillo? Well, an old town (shock!), a cathedral (surprise!), and a castle (¡no me digas!). An a pretty cool Plaza Mayor that is supposed to be traffic free but some ingenious tour bus driver decided to break free from the chains of signs stating "No entrar" and the like and just barged right into the center of the square and let off a busload of old people tourists-- the worst kind. 

We walked through the tiny streets of the old part of town, constantly uphill, stopping to have certain buildings pointed out to us. If I recall correctly and this was the right city (checking my photos, yes I'm right) Francisco Pizarro's house is still standing. That's right, the man that viciously conquered the Incas lived in Trujillo. Now he has two cats perching on his stoop outside.

We headed up, up, up! Up til we reached the absolute highest point in Trujillo, which reminded me a lot of Toledo in how the old part of the city, walled in and all, was built on a hill...so when you get to the top you have an absolutely stunning and majestic view of the city, town, and countryside surrounding for miles (or kilometers!). It also helps when at the top of this ice cream birthday cake of wonder is a castle piercing into the sky. A castle you can romp around in, running from wall to wall, from tower to tower and almost falling over the edge between the cracks in the stone walls. Be warned, afraid of heights? -- the castle at Trujillo is not for you. Oh heck, just go up there anyways, it's such a beautiful sight -- just hold on. There was no singular point where I could view everything at one point (and subsequently get a 360º panorama -- boo), so I ended up literally running around on top of the castle to all parts and sorts of towers trying to see as much as I could. On one side, the old town winding down to Plaza Mayor and the sprawling city behind it, from there the freeway leading us back to Madrid, and even further a mountain thrusting itself up in the horizon. 

The other side -- to the left -- a large field of solar panels soaking up the noon day sun, cattle on a ranch swaggering around a desolate field containing one, maybe two, trees. And sheep, and goats, and more. Vultures circling around a herd of cows further on in the horizon, perhaps there laid a dead one-- after all, after a while I didn't see the vultures in the sky anymore. And everywhere, billowy white clouds in the sky, casting their gigantic shadows over large sections of the land set out before my eyes. One of those rare moments where that shadow you always feel move over head when a cloud covers the sun -- you actually get to see what it looks like from afar and above. There is the cloud, there the sun high up in the blue sky and below them both a large mass of darkness. The cloud slowly blows past and the farmers tending their herd below bask again in the sunlight, looking up and seeing light and looking around and seeing golden fields -- never knowing if only they were covered up in that shadow cast by the clouds nor how far it reached nor who observed this minutiae of nature.

Then we had lunch. Not our normal menú del día, though we're sure that's what we wanted. The problem with such a smaller, largely tourist town is that eating anywhere is expensive. Expensive at least for us students on a budget. We headed down to the new town and found one of the few bars that was open. No menú but we'll suffice and sit down anyways, taking up their whole comedor. Remember, Extremadura -- best jamón in the world. Okay, now what should I order? A bocadillo de jamón ibérico? Bingo. Oh, kinda hungry, so toss in a boca de tortilla con atún. Never had it before, gotta try something new, right?

The jamón came first and I was beyond pleased and delighted. I was in floating off my chair from the ecstasy produced by this ethereal ham. Ham. Yes, the meat I absolutely hate and cannot eat in the States brings me to such great heights and states of being in Spain. What a wonderful world. The beautiful thing about jamón ibérico is that it is so damn good, sorry -- great, that it needs nothing else. It's not like the deli meat you get in America, it doesn't need mayonnaise, nor cheese, nor lettuce, nor mustard, nor pepper, nor oregano, nor butter. No, all you need with jamón ibérico is jamón ibérico. Place that on quality bread and you have one of the best sandwiches you could ever possibly have. That's what I had. Too bad I still had a boca de tortilla con atún coming. Should have eaten that one first. 

We hopped back on the bus and headed (home) to Alcalá. We arrived too early for me to justify going back home, still living off the high of the weekend. I hate those bus rides back home since they're always filled with uneasiness and anxiety. I don't want the journey to end. Even the ride I enjoy. I wish it took longer to get to Alcalá from Trujillo but it doesn't. So I get back, chilled for a while in the plaza and headed home. Defeated. The last CIEE group trip.

La noche en blanco

A new Epicurean Adventures will be coming later, but for right now I must recount la noche en blanco, a very special night held once a year in Madrid (and various other European cities like Paris and Rome). Where to start? First: la noche en blanco is an all night festival honoring the full moon. All the museums are open free to the public til 7am and there are all these streets closed off to cars, full of hundreds of thousands of people and various public art and music performances. We spent the night walking around Madrid, in the cold, admiring quite the spectacle.

Arriving in Madrid at Atocha at 11:30p.m. we headed to la Reina Sofía first, where they were lighting a bunch of candles on the steps to the museum. We sat en terraza at a bar in the plaza, and after some time what appeared to be a nude man stood in the middle of the candles, motionless. As we approached, we discovered that people were pouring hot wax from the candles on him (and that he wasn't completely naked, he had a small jock strap on). La Reina Sofía is the museum of modern art here, and some girl gave a speech explaining her little piece of art.

We headed down El Paseo del Prado, which is normally like Lake Shore Dr in Chicago but was completely devoid of cars and full of people. First "exhibit" we ran into was a guy up on a platform in the middle of the street playing a violin. It was a beautiful song. Then he decided to whip out a saw. Yeah, like those wobbly ones you use to cut trees. He pulled out a saw and started playing it, quite awkwardly, but still very amusing.

Further down el Paseo, right outside the Velazquez entrance to El Prado was two vaudevillian men blowing gigantic bubbles over the crowd to the tune of classical music. It was cool but nothing to hold our interest too long. 

And then near la Plaza del Neptuno, one of my favorite exhibitions of the night. We approached, and I was not enthused about this guy singing some song in English with these weird, new age instrumentals. I'm like "What the heck, I'm in Madrid, where's the Spanish music?" He finished the song then said "Creo que vas a gustar esto." And I did. I forgot there are certain songs that are universal. The Beatles happen to have a whole catalogue full of them. He had four microphones and in each one he made a different vocal "track," if you will, to which he then started to loop these background vocals to make up the instrumentals of the song. Then he proceeded to sing, in perfect English, Strawberry Fields Forever. I was so enamored that at first I was just standing there in awe, it was so beautiful. Then I remembered I can take video with my camera, so I have a portion of the song captured on video, which I will post later.

We moved on, in the fountain of la Plaza de Neptuno (or Neptune, if you couldn't figure that out (or Poseidon)) were oversized rubber ducks. Just floating around. 

Did I mention there were hundreds of thousands of people there? The streets were jam packed with people (and coincidentally, trash). Los madrileños were smart and brought large bottles of booze and plenty of beer so they didn't have to go to bars to get drunk. Throngs of people were just walking around with booze all night then tossing it wherever they were when they were done. The streets were literally trashed by 3am.

This is the old post office building. Hard to tell, but those are lips that are "kissing" the building. They made loud puckering sounds and would kiss different parts of the building constantly. I have video that I will try to get up later. Crazy art students.

We headed to la Puerta de Alcalá. This was the first time I had seen it, after hearing that song all the time in Profe's class. It was illuminated intermittently and there was a huge line to walk underneath it. We decided not to wait to walk under an arch (though I don't think you can do that normally, so maybe we should have...) and instead headed to a bar to get some pinchos and drinks. El Espejo, the bar, was a nice terraza bar in the middle of the street that reminded me of the images I've seen of old Parisian bars. We had a plate of jamón ibérico and queso and bread, and I a copa of vino tinto. This was one of the other highlights of the night for me. The jamón was the best yet I've had in Spain (not saying much given what I had at the "Italian" restaurant). The cheese, which normally I can't stand Spanish cheese, was actually really good, especially with the jamón and bread. The wine was delicious as well. We were sitting in the middle of the street freezing in the wind but I was having a terrific time. Need to go back there.

From there the mission was Gran Vía, as there was plenty of be had there (or so we thought). By this time there were already cleaning crews outside leaf blowing and spraying the streets with water (why? I don't know). Didn't seem to be as many people out on Gran Vía at this time (was about 3am) so we headed into Zahara café for some wake me up caffeine. We sat around there, half asleep, half ready for the rest of the night, until the place closed at 4am. Down Gran Vía, we passed la Plaza de España and el Palacio Real on our way to "Máximo silencio," probably the best piece of art of the whole night. It was quite a walk through streets and parks full of the discarded bottles of alcohol and mixers from earlier botellones. We lost ourselves a bit in a dark street by el Puente de Segovia and a river. Ended up atop a hill looking at the most spectacular and sobering exhibition in Madrid. Ten thousand multicolored lights filled a field on the west side of Madrid. Alternating colors, below the full moon, the perfect night cap to la noche en blanco. It's really hard to describe just what it was like to be there, how it felt and the impact it had on me. Even the photos and videos I have don't really do it justice. Just trust me that it was something special and that I almost hate mentioning it because I'm sad that you all could not take part in it. However, I did manage to get some photos that try to give you a sense of what it was like, as well as some videos that I will try to get up later (along with the Strawberry Fields Forever video). 

 

Head here for the whole photo set.

New Photos

More on the Flickr page. Looks like the photos to the right are slowly being updated with new ones.

Primer día de las clases

No mucho hoy. 

Went to classes. Más o menos bien. Grammar with Cristina (nuestra directora) looks to be a bit difficult at times, just due to the time and effort that needs to be put into it. Got this gigantic course booklet today. Only two classes on Mondays and Wednesdays. Phonetics after that. Seems to be pretty interesting but anything that get even close to science scares me. We were talking about parts of the mouth and throat I've never even thought about before. 

School supplies are extremely expensive here. I bought a pack of liquid ink pens (mis favoritos) and they were nearly 5€. All the notebooks are lined like graph paper. And yet Cristina wants our composiciones on blank paper because it's easier to write straight, according to her... Also, hand written. Because Word is often wrong, she says. Will help my handwritten Spanish though, so that's fun.

Afternoons without class (M/W I get out at 12:30) can be boring. Or awesome. Try sitting in the Plaza for 2 hours. That's entertaining. I feel as though last week no one was around during the day but since yesterday the whole of Alcalá has filled up with people everywhere at all times of the day. Not sure if anyone actually works here. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Heck, I want to move here and just sit around and do nothing all day but eat. 

I'm excited. After meal after meal of sopa de judeas (bean soup) looks like I'll be finally getting some really good Spanish food for dinner tonight. Tortilla española. Although mi mama said that it wasn't the type you'd find in bars, that it was her mother's recipe. A bit scared. 

Was sitting in la Plaza today and had one of those outer body experiences that are so fashionable. I tend to like to zoom out of my head and look at where I am at any given time like a satellite. Zoomed all the way out and saw the whole of the Iberian peninsula. Then I zoomed in on Madison. And Milwaukee. I wonder how all of YOU are doing right now. Clearly I'm keeping you all well informed (and I promise I'll get more photos soon). But I want to hear from you guys, what are your adventures? Have any recent photos you want to share? Would love to see them. So, yeah, kinda miss yall a bit.

First Photos!

Colegio de Malaga, originally uploaded by itsthinking.

Are up. Only my Flickr, which is linked to on the right, although for some reason my news photos aren't updating on the fun little side bar. Oh well. Click this one and it'll take you there as well.

Bean soup for lunch again today! Yay! ...

Tired constantly. Can't stress that enough. Had ten minutes before had to meet people...took a nap.

Went to the supermarket today. Almost died of happiness. Didn't help that it was before lunch and was starving. Everything looked AMAZING. Giant legs of pigs hanging there. Unpasturized milk. Coca Cola with CANE SUGAR in it. Delicious, having some right now actually at an internet café. CUARENTA Y TRES! Bottles of wine from 79 cents ($1.12). Almost cried. The other people in my group enjoy watching me anywhere there is food because I just go crazy. Even the simple bean soups here I don't mind. Usually. Eat a loaf of bread for every meal. Breakfast of instant coffee stirred into microwaved milk and galletas (cookies, which were very, very dry). Need to find a bocadillo joint.

Took a placement test today. Funny. Was from the University of Wisconsin...probably had taken it for retro placement. Easy enough. Going to be taking four courses. Decided not to take a university course second semester. I love Spain, but by May I know I'll be ready to come home and hang out with all of you guys, or at least the people that I miss (ha, love all you guys).

Learning a lot already here. Not just Spanish wise. The family life is completely different. Candela's grandchildren visit every day. Multiple times. Had lunch with them today. Was very quite for some reason. They like to play piano a lot, or at least Candela forces them too. Shower was interesting this morning. Forgot soap (bought some at the supermarket later). The showers here all have detachable heads. And sometimes don't have stands to put them in. So it's washing yourself one handed. End up writing in my journal often. Several pages a day (so they weren't a waste of money, mother). Often find myself throwing in Spanish words or wanting to write in Spanish. So I often do. Interesting to read, when I switch off and on mid sentence. Beginning to think in Spanish. Good news, I suppose. Will try to keep this in English, or at least half and half, so I don't forgot English.

Battery is dying, must go. Will try to get internet tonight. Friend gave me password to a signal I can get from my room. Hopefully it will work.

Hasta.

Realize photo is wider than post. Will fix that for future posts. Better to go to my Flickr anyways to see the photos at bigger sizes and such. Enjoy.