The many magical fountains of Barcelona

Palabra del día: Es la leche (Ok, it's actually another Frase del Dia but close enough)
Literal translation: It's the milk
Actual translation: It's the shit
Frase: No he visto nada como la Sagrada Familia.  Es la leche!
Translation: I haven't seen anything like the Sagrada Familia.  It's the shit!

Comida del día: Pincho (or in Catalan, Pintxos)
This is a form of tapas unique to Barcelona.  Pincho literally means stick or toothpick.  In this type of restaurant, there are platters of different appetizer-sized foods and you help yourself to whatever looks good.  Each portion has a toothpick in it, so when it is time to pay they count your toothpicks and you pay a certain amount per toothpick (usually between 1 and 2 euros).  I went to a great pintxo bar in Barcelona called Euskal Extea where I ate some delicious tortilla Española, bread topped with brie and tomatoes, and bread topped with some sort of fish, though I'm still not quite sure what it was. It was lots of fun to try some new foods!

Foto del día: Las Cahorras

This is from a hike I went on two weekends ago with IES to a place called Las Cahorras, which is a popular day trip for people from Granada for picnicking, hiking, rock climbing, beautiful views, and this slightly scary, never-ending hanging bridge. 

Ok, so now to tell you a bit more about last weekend's very fun trip to Barcelona!  I went with four friends Thursday through Sunday, though we packed a lot into a few days.  Barcelona almost felt like a different country from Granada.  Barcelona is in the Catalunya region of Spain, where the official language is Catalan and not Spanish.  People do speak Spanish, but for most restaurant menus and museum descriptions the first language is Catalan, the second is Spanish, and sometimes there is a third in English.  There is a lot of controversy in Spain right now because there is talk of Catalunya receding from Spain to become an independent country.  This is partly due to the economic crisis and the fact that Catalunya is the most economically successful region of Spain.  There a lot of Catalan cultural pride, especially since the language and culture were repressed under the Franco regime.  There is also recent controversy about the language taught in schools.  Right now the primary language is Catalan, but there is a movement to make the schools trilingual between Catalan, Spanish and English, though there is local opposition by people who want to preserve their Catalan culture.

In any case, the unique language and culture made it a bit difficult to practice my Spanish while I was there, although we did have a great conversation the first night with our cab driver from the airport.  He didn't speak much English so he was very happy that we could speak Spanish.  We also found out that he's from Morocco, and when we told him we were going there he started teaching us some Arabic and put on a soundtrack of some great traditional Moroccan music.  It was by far the best cab ride of my life and an excellent start to our trip.

Here are some other highlights:

Day 1: We wandered around the Gothic neighborhood and toured the cathedral where I saw this duck:

Or is it a llama?  If you don't know what I'm talking about you should download the llama or duck iphone app immediately.

Then we walked up and down Las Ramblas and drank from this fountain, which is supposed to ensure a return trip to Barcelona:

For lunch we ate at the Bocería market, which is definitely the best market I have ever been to.  I decided to go to a few different stations, so my lunch consisted of a spinach empanada, gazpacho, fresh raspberries, fruit salad with kiwi, figs, mango and papaya, and a chocolate banana smoothie.  So much good food!

In the afternoon we went to the Picasso museum.  There was a great exhibit about Las Meninas, a Velazquez painting that I saw in Madrid that Picasso adapted.  It was a really neat way to see the evolution of Spanish art!

Velazquez Las Meninas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Las_Meninas_(1656),_by_Velazquez.jpg

Picasso Las Meninas: http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitxer:PabloPicasso_Meninas.jpg

In the evening we explored the El Born neighborhood around the Picasso museum, a very cute neighborhood with boutiques, cafes, little tapas bars, and not too many tourists.  I love tiny cafes so it was my favorite neighborhood that we visited.  That night we also tried out the Barcelona nightlife and went to a discoteca that the hostel paid for us to get into.  It was full of tourists and had terrible music, but it was right on the beach so we left and went for a very pleasant late night stroll.

Day 2: This was Gaudí day!  We started at the Sagrada Familia, his famous cathedral that's still a work in progress.  Thankfully we planned enough in advance and bought tickets ahead of time, because the line outside was a mile long and we got to skip the whole thing.  The building is absolutely amazing and unlike anything I've ever seen before.  My pictures don't do it justice, but I loved the nature/ forrest theme and the stained glass.  In the afternoon we walked by two apartment buildings that Gaudí designed and then we went to his park, Parque Guell, which had some really neat benches, a lizard, and two little houses, as well as the house that Gaudí lived in which was converted to a museum.

An attempt to capture the Sagrada Familia in a single photograph

In the evening we went to the Magic Fountains.  They light up every evening with colored lights illuminating tons of water, and the Spanish Disney music added to the truly magical atmosphere.

In front of the magic fountains, right before the wind blew towards us and we got a little bit wet!

Day 3: After two busy days of sightseeing, we had a very chill day walking through Parque Ciutadella and ending at the Barceloneta beach.  We also happened upon some street performers making human towers (literally 3-4 people balancing on top of each other) and the sardana circle dances outside of the Cathedral, which are apparently a Barcelona Sunday midday tradition.

A Gaudí designed fountain in Parque Ciutadella

I loved Barcelona for it's unique culture and it's distinct neighborhoods, and of course the beach didn't hurt either.  Thankfully I drank from the fountain, so I know that I will be back!  It was nice to come home to Granada for a few days, and tomorrow I'm leaving again for a 5 day adventure to Morocco.  I will be sure to let you know all about it when I return!

Six week anniversary

Palabra del día: No pasa nada
Translation: No worries, doesn't matter, etc.
Spilled food? Forgot homework? Asked someone to repeat a sentence 6 times? No pasa nada.

Comida del día: Tarta de chocolate from Los Italianos

 This wonderful dessert that I'm enjoying with my friend Annie is four amazing ice cream flavors formed into the shape of a slice of cake, and then placed into an ice cream cone. The flavors include chocolate chip, something with nuts, a mysterious beige flavor, and the best chocolate gelato in the world. It's from Los Italianos, which is the most famous gelato shop in Granada.  When Michelle Obama visisted Granada for a day, her two stops were the Alhambra and Los Italianos.  This photo is actually more of a memorial because the store closed for the winter last Saturday.  I guess they don't need the winter business so they decided to take some time off, but it makes me very very sad that I won't be able to enjoy this delicious treat again.

Foto del día:

This is the family of stray cats that lives outside my apartment building.  I'm actually not completely sure they're strays, because in this photo they are enjoying cat food that someone left on their doorstep.  What I am sure about is that whenever I come home late at night they always jump through the fence and make me jump a mile.

Granada and I are celebrating our six week anniversary today.  It was love at first sight.    On our one week anniversary, I made a list of some of the cultural differences I've noticed.  To give you a recap, it included:

• Lunch at 2:30 and siesta in the middle of the work day
• Army showers
• Walking everywhere
• People staying out all night, every night
• No bare feet
• Kids living with parents for much longer

After living together for six weeks I've discovered more of this city's hidden characteristics and secret habits, so I've decided it's time for a revised and expanded list of various aspects of life that I've been trying hard to adapt to.

1. One of the hardest things for me to get used to is greeting people with a kiss on each cheek instead of a handshake.  It's really hard to kiss someone that you literally met 5 seconds before!  But that is the custom for greetings here, whether you're old friends with someone or you just met them.  The only exception is if two men are greeting each other, in which case they use a handshake.  Unfortunately, that situation never applies to me.

2. Related to this, people here have a very different concept of personal space.  We all have that friend who's a "close talker," and who keeps inching up on you even when you try to take tiny steps backwards...in Spain, every friend is that friend.
This also applies in crowds of people.   If there is a crowded sidewalk, no one moves to let you pass because they expect that you will just push past them.  I find myself in this situation a lot because people here walk unusually slowly and the sidewalks are about one foot wide.  I usually decide that I would rather slow down and adjust to the Spanish pace of life rather than having to touch strangers.

4. On a similar note, waiting in lines is also something that never happens here.  In situations where Americans form neat and organized lines, Spanish people push there way to the front.  This works out really well for them because they end up ahead of all of the timid Americans who are unsuccessfully attempting to form a line.

5. Cafes are for drinking coffee.  Sidewalks are for walking.  To go cups are for tourists.

6. The rumors that Europeans are better dressed than Americans are absolutely true.  No one wears yoga pants and running sneakers to class, to run errands, or anywhere except the gym.  No one wears hooded sweatshirts except for international students flaunting their brand new University of Granada swag.  My host mom does my laundry, and returns all of my clothes flawlessly ironed.  Even my socks and underwear!

7. The street is everyone's living room.  When people hang out with friends at night, they are more likely to do it outside.  My host mom will have friends over occasionally, but usually this is for special occasions or scheduled dinners.  People are very social, but socializing happens in public instead of in people's houses.  Possibly as a result of this, public space is used for things that I previously considered private activities.  For example, PDA is rampant.  And unfortunately, streets sometimes double as bathrooms.  I've witnessed a child whose mother was letting him pee on the street. Dogs do it, so why shouldn't children?

Another example of this is such a strange story that I can't help but share it (this is definitely not normal, in Spain or anywhere in the world!). I was sitting in a park doing homework when I looked up and saw a man taking a crap.  In a public park.  No one else witnessed this event so I'm starting to doubt it actually happened, but I don't think I'm capable of making up a story that disgusting!

8. I've noticed a lot of differences between university life here and in the US.  First of all, exams work very differently.  In many classes, the final exam is 100 percent of your grade.  Exams happen one month after classes end (basically "reading month" instead of "reading week") but then the next semester's classes start immediately after exams, so there's no such thing as summer vacation.  There also seems to be less work and less reading.  In my last ancient music history class, I took tons of notes about Aristotle's Politics, but we aren't expected to read the book.  This ends up being a lot less work than my classes at WashU where I always have tons of reading, but I have mixed feelings about accepting what the professor says without doing much thinking for myself.  The amount of reading does depend on the course, but I've talked to a few friends whose classes work similarly.

Also, the school system in general functions differently.  At the end of high school, everyone takes a test, and your score on that test determines your choices for what to major in.  The major, or carrera, always leads directly into a career.  This means that students here have to decide their profession much earlier than students in the US and that universities are much more career-focused. 

College social life is also different.  Students here go to the university for classes and classes only.  There are hardly any clubs or sports teams associated directly with universities, though it seems that students become good friends with the other students in their carrera.  Although some students live in dorms, many live in apartments.  Additionally, many students go to college close to home, and in this case they always live with their parents (and save a lot of money).  There are plenty of opportunities to play sports, take dance classes, socialize, etc., but these activities are not exclusively for university students.  I think because of this students become more involved with the city as a whole rather than just with their university. 

9. I mentioned in my one-week list that people socialize all the time.  That's true, but a common misconception is that it's normal to go out with friends all night, every night.  I can see where this comes from because there are people out every single night.  There may be people who do that, but from talking to Spanish students I've learned that most people go out on Friday and Saturday night.  One of these nights but definitely not both, people might go to a discoteca until 6 am.  On nights when they don't go to a discoteca, people go out for tapas, to bars, or to parties at friends houses.  It is a more social and later-night culture than the US, but not to the extent that it seems like at first.

10. The drinking culture is also different.  People here drink all the time, but hardly every get as drunk as many college students do on weekend nights.  The culture here is to go to a tapas bar, sit there for a few hours, and have a few drinks that always come with food.  Socializing is more important than drinking.  The drinking age is 18 but no one really cares, and most people start drinking with their families before they drink with their friends.

11. Something I've struggled with a bit is the fact that the university here doesn't have an orchestra or opportunities to play music.  I've realized that this is because people tend to pursue music as a hobby much less frequently than people in the US.  Except for the guitar.  Everyone seems to play the guitar here and most people are really good at it!  It was extremely hard for me to find a place to practice piano because unlike WashU, UGR doesn't have a music building with practice rooms open to students.  My friend wanted to rent a cello and discovered that there is only one music store in all of Granada where you can do that.  To pursue music as a career, most people decide before high school and then go to a specialized music school that feeds into a conservatory. It is possible to study music history in college, but this degree doesn't involve any music performance.  There also don't seem to be any community orchestras, though community bands like the one that I play in are very common in the small towns outside of the city because they play in religious processionals.  Since there are no bands associated with schools, many young students and anyone who decides to keep playing as a hobby will join one of these bands.

Those are some of the most significant cultural differences I've noticed in the last six weeks.  Although at times it's hard to adjust and frustrating to make a fool of myself by saying the wrong thing or acting the wrong way, I've enjoyed the challenge of adapting to another culture and learning about different customs.  I wonder what this list will look like at our twelve week anniversary?

Pomegranates and processionals

Palabra del día: trompa
Translation: french horn
Frase: Aprendí en domingo que es muy dificil andar y tocar la trompa al mismo tiempo.
Translation: I learned yesterday that it's very difficult to walk and play the french horn at the same time.

Comida del día: Granada
Apparently Granada is not only a city, but is also the Spanish word for pomegranate!  No one seems to know if the city was named after the fruit, if the fruit was named after the city, or if the the two names are unrelated.  Whatever the case may be, this week was the start of pomegranate season and I keep seeing pomegranate trees around the city full of fruit that is begging to be picked.  Yesterday we had a salad with pomegranate seeds in it - it's definitely worth a try!

Foto del día:

This is the giant statue of a naked woman in Armilla (sorry, it's sideways!)  It's the landmark that tells me to get off the bus when I get to band practice.

There have been times over the last month when I have started to forget that I'm in Spain, and then something happens that destroys all doubt that I could be living anywhere else.  Last Sunday night was one of those moments.  It was also the first time in my life that I wished I had been forced to play in a high school marching band.

Last Sunday I had the unique opportunity of playing in a religious processional with the band that I joined.  The procession was for the patron saint of the town of Armilla, which is where the band is located.  Religious processionals are quite common here, especially during Semana Santa (the week of Easter).  Each town or city also has a patron saint, so there are processionals throughout the year in various places.  In a religious processional, an ornately decorated statue of the Virgin is taken from a church and marched around the town, trailed by burning incense and a band playing traditional Spanish marches.

If I had played in high school marching band, walking while playing would have been easy.  But I didn't.  And as I've learned from flamenco class, I'm also not a very coordinated person, so walking and playing at the same time was extremely difficult for me.  In addition, I hadn't rehearsed most of the music and had trouble reading it, especially once it got dark.  However, all of the other people in my band, who were pros at walking and playing and even had some of the marches memorized, assured me that the first procession was always difficult and said that I didn't need to play if it was too hard.  So I spent about half the time playing and half the time pretending to play while trying to wrap my head around the fact that this experience was actually my real life.  The best part of the evening was that a big group of people from the band, plus two of my friends from IES who came to watch, went out for tapas afterwards.  Everyone was really friendly and I even managed to make a few jokes in Spanish. It's nice to finally get to know some Spanish people!

Some other highlights of this week:

• IES organized a cooking class for us!  It turned out to be more of a demonstration, so I didn't actually learn how to cook.  But I got to watch the chef make lots of delicious food, and then eat it, of course. The menu included salmorejo (an andalusían soup similar to gazpacho), tortilla Española, paella, and a custardy dessert sort of like crem brule called natillas.
• I went on a beautiful hike last weekend to a park above the Alhambra (see photo below!).
• I finally have access to the website for my course at the University of Granada.

View of the Alhambra from my hike last Saturday

And a few lowlights (because life here is almost perfect but not quite):

•  It took me an hour and a half to get from my university class to band rehearsal on two different buses on Monday.  The good news is that from now on a band member's mom who works at the university will be able to drive me!
• I didn't get access to the readings for my university class until the day before an essay was due, so I had to do it all in one day
• When I tried to go to my new favorite internet cafe/ vegetarian tapas bar to do said essay, it was closed because the owners are on "personal vacation" this week.  Does that sort of thing ever happen in the US?  People here really know how to relax!

And to wrap things up, another Lorca quote for you to chew on:
Un muerte en España está más vivo como muerto que en ningún sitio del mundo.

Translation attempt: A death in Spain is more alive than in any other part of the world.

I went to Madrid!

Palabra del día: altavoz
Translation: speaker
Frase: La semana pasada alguien instaló un altavoz en el techo del baño y escuché a la música pop cuando me duchaba.
Translation: Last week someone installed a speaker in the bathroom ceiling and I listened to pop music while I showered. (True story, though I haven't heard music in there since then).

Comida del día: Torta del virgen

 Last week there were a lot of religious processionals in honor of the virgen, and there is a special food to celebrate as well.  It's basically sweet bread with some sort o filling, and it comes in many flavors.  I got one from the delicious bakery next door, which sells giant pastries for very cheap and smells like freshly baked bread all day, every day.  The flavor I chose was called "cabello de angel," which means angel hair.  I thought this choice was a bit risky but thankfully it tasted like orange marmelade.  I'm wondering how angels have any hair left on their head if their hair tastes that good!

Foto del día: 

Here I am in front of the Palacio Real, which was our first stop in Madrid this weekend.  The palace was gigantic with ornate decorations in each of its 25 rooms.

 Traveling from Granada to Madrid last weekend reminded me in some ways of a trip from Boston to New York.  Madrid is huge, crowded, expensive, has a wide variety of diverse neighborhoods and restaurants, has tons of tourists, and is great for shopping.  Its modern buildings don't reach as high as New York's skyscrapers, but they were still a shock after living with Granada's small hillside houses for the past few weeks. And though Granada is smaller than Boston, they are both more livable and student-friendly compared to their larger counterparts.

I went on this trip with 5 friends from the program, which was convenient because we got a room in a hostel all to ourselves.  About an hour after arriving in Madrid, we agreed that we were glad we chose Granada as a place to study abroad.  It wasn't that we didn't like Madrid; it's just that Madrid seemed like a great city for visiting, rather than for living.  We were also upset that we had to pay so much money for food, instead of getting free tapas with our drinks like we are used to in Granada.  After making these comparisons, we decided to stop comparing and start enjoying everything the city had to offer, and we definitely made the most of our 2.5 days there.  Here are some highlights:

1. Food: Of course I have to talk about the food.  Madrid was great because it had more options.  I had been getting a bit sick of spanish food (there's only so much tortilla one can eat!) so I was happy that we got to eat at an Indian restaurant and a Mexican restaurant.  We also stopped at a Starbucks, where I got iced tea and a chocolate chip cookie - two foods that don't seem to exist in Spain!  We were shocked at the prices though.  If you thought Starbucks was overpriced in the US, don't try it in Spain.  In terms of real Spanish food, we ate at a delicious Tapas restaurant called Lateral that had plenty of vegetarian options.  Thanks for the recommendation, Amy!

2. Museums: On Saturday we went to the Prado, a giant museum with lots of traditional Spanish art.  It was very impressive, but after about an hour everything started to look the same to me...I really enjoyed the Reina Sofia modern art museum, which we went to the next day.  It had big glass elevators, lots of works by Picasso and Dali, and a really neat exhibit about a film artist that included a recreation of his studio and contained all of his old film equipment.

3. Retiro Park: This was a beautiful and very large city park near the museums, which was originally built for the kind and queen. We rented rowboats and had lots of fun paddling around.

4. Shopping: On Saturday, we went vintage shopping in an area called Malasaña.  This cute cafe, which we stopped at one morning for what I like to call "second breakfast," is also located there:

We also went to El Rastro flea market, which is the (only) thing to do on Sunday mornings in Madrid.  It was probably 20 blocks long, and full of great bargains!  I think bought a few more things than I should have, but I did get some good souveniers, including a scarf, earrings, a skirt, and a flamenco guitar CD.

5. Nightlife: on Friday night we decided to check out a giant discoteca called El Kapitan.  We got there around 1:30 am, and when I left at 3:30 there were still people pouring in.  It's pretty normal to stay at a discoteca until 6 am, and most don't close until 8.  The club had four different floors and was still jam packed, but it was definitely fun to experience Spanish nightlife in a big city.

I thoroughly enjoyed the sites and variety that Madrid had to offer, but by Sunday night I was  ready to go back to Granada, get some sleep, and return to the land of free tapas and beautiful landscapes.