So many things to blog about, parte tres: Sevilla y Cadíz

Oh my god, so much traveling this month. Finally, my whirlwind tour of February weekend trips is over. Time to recount all of it, hopefully in the spirit of conciseness. :)

Last weekend, the program took us to Sevilla, which is a major port city in the south of Spain (in Andalucía). I absolutely adore this town more than anything, and I think if I had to choose any other place to live in the world, it would be Sevilla.

Plaza Catedral, leading into the winding streets of the historic district

Sevilla is more like a pueblo than an actually city. Everyone seems to know each other. The main plaza is constantly busy, gorgeous and sunny. The buildings are bright and colorful, and have an amazing architectural mix of European and Moorish influences. A lovely break from the white and grey, thin narrow apartment buildings of Barcelona.

The first thing we did was take a walking tour of the historic district, which is a maze of tourist shops, cobbled winding roads, tapas places, and gorgeous old-style houses.The tiles to the right are everywhere in the city--they're called "azulejos", and Andalucía is known for them. This is just a small example, but every house is decorated with elaborate tiles.

The houses themselves are interesting; the bottom floor is a patio with open-air rooms bordering the patio, usually with lots of tiles, plants, and maybe a fountain. The upper floors have closed in bedrooms, studies, etc.  Very different from what we're used to, but so fun and so beautiful. You can just walk onto the porch of these houses and look into their patios...which we did.

For the Jews out there: the city has an amazing Jewish history; the historic district used to be a strong Jewish district in Spain. The streets are so windy, maze-like, and narrow (the idea, our guide said, was because windy streets without street access make it hard to find them). You can find some sort of Jewish artwork in every other souvenir store, antique store, and little boutique.

Pictured to the left is a couple of us CIEE Jewish representatives in front of an azulejo map of the old historic Jewish district.

We also visited the Sevilla cathedral, which they told us is the third largest cathedral in the world. Typical Europe...you visit a place, you have to see its cathedral. It actually used to be a mosque, so despite the obvious Euro-christian influences, the architecture is actually very moorish.

Again, it's kind of one of those things where I can't even begin to describe how beautiful it is. This pic is of the grand chapel in the cathedral. There are other chapels, including one that is curtained off and reserved for the royal family. It's a big deal.

Afterwards we climbed up the bell tower, which is called la Giralda. It used to be a main part of the mosque, before it was converted into the cathedral. To the left, the view of Sevilla from the bell tower--note the bull fighting arena (which we sadly did not get to visit) and part of the mosque/cathedral in the lower foreground.

The most amazing part of the trip for me, and probably of this whole semester so far, was attending a flamenco performance. Flamenco is a very traditional Spanish form of music and dance; it's especially attributed to Andalucía.

Flamenco is a combination of a very particular type of music, played on a Spanish guitar, with a following of rhythmic clapping and yelling from the clappers, and with the flamenco dancers. The dancing involves very impressive series of strong stomps on a wooden surface. It's very rhythmic, loud, and powerful--typical Spanish.

The next day, we took a day trip to Cadíz.  It's a beach town about an hour and a half away from Sevilla. We got to see the fortifications and beach castles built around the city. The seafood was really good, and they have lots of windy streets with little shops as well. We went up another bell tower in the Cadíz cathedral, which was beautiful to see the whole town and the sea. For those of you playing along, and who have seen Lost season 6, IT LOOKED LIKE JACOB'S TOWER (dad, I know you get that reference!)

On our last day in Sevilla, we went to see the Real Alcazar--originally of moorish origin, the gorgeous buildings were converted into a royal palace for various royal monarchs. The entire thing is so humongous, with gigantic Moorish-style rooms displaying beautiful European artwork, and a maze-like, endless series of gardens. We found a peacock in one of them? It was very beautiful, stunning, and relaxing to just walk around in these gardens. Also, very easy to get lost in.

To finish up our trip in Sevilla, we sat in plaza del catedral, ate lunch, watched the horses pulling the trolleys, and listened to a Spanish guitarist street artist playing next to the remains of an old royal palace. With the sun beating down, it was the perfect way to end the trip.














If you couldn't tell by the ridiculous amount of stuff I wrote about it, I absolutely love Sevilla. It's by far my favorite place that I have been to so far.

Coming up next: Venice Carnival, I get laryngitis, and I'm going to move! Hasta luego!

So many things to blog about, parte dos: Paris

Flashback to two weeks ago (gawd, so much to blog...I'm so bad at keeping up with this!), when two of my friends and I took a weekend trip to Paris. It was essentially three days of tourist mania. We went to the Eiffel Tower, of course, one too many times...my friend reaaaally liked the Eiffel Tower...I mean it's really just a tower....but it's pretty cool to see. Maybe just once.  But, obligatory Eiffel Tower picture....ready go.

Our hostel was pretty nice, although it smelled like sweaty summer camp cabin mixed with old potatoes, and they recommended a cute French café nearby for our first meal in Paris. This meal was one of the best meals I have had since I've been in Europe. So typically french...good wine, amazing French bread (which they eat EVERYWHERE. And I thought the Spanish were bad), amazing salad, and the best part: baked French cheese in a ramequin with honey. With the bread and the wine, plus the people all around us, it felt so French. Except for the fact that they spoke English....but honestly, almost every one there speaks "a little bit" of English. 

By far, my absolute favorite part of Paris was the museums that we went to. Of course, the Louvre was outstanding. We spent almost the whole morning there, and we were even able to get it for free with our Spanish visas! We saw so much, I can't even really talk about all that we saw. My favorite parts were the grecian sculptures and a section of Egyptian artwork, which was really really fascinating. And of course, the pyramids at the entrance are phenomenal...not to mention that I was having a "Da Vinci Code" freak out for part of the time.

The Museé d'Orsday was also really fascinating. Unfortunately we didn't get to spend as much time there as I would have liked, although admittedly it is a lot smaller. This museum made me realize how much I love Impressionist artwork...especially the classic works form Van Gogh and his contemporaries. Completely amazing. We also got into this museum for free, thanks to our visas. Love it.

After the Louvre we went to Notre Dame, and we happened to goduring a mass, so we got to hear the oregon and the singing throughout the whole cathedral. The cathedral itself is awesome, and the music only made it seem so much more amazing. At night, all lit up, it was especially powerful and I loved it.

Afterwards, we took a boat tour on the Seinne, which is absolutely gorgeous. The boat tour was so touristy but fun, with all of its cheesy explanations and the guide who spoke something like 5 languages. The city is really gorgeous, although it is massive. (And it kind of reaks of sewage, tourists, and sweat. But the river is so beautiful!) 

The Parisian version of subway music...an entire freaking
orchestra. All that Barcelona's subway offers is men with
guitars singing American music.

That night, we had a picnic dinner at the hostel and then ran through the subway to get to the Eiffel Tower at midnight to see it light up. That was a lot of fun, especially running through the subway together...the Paris subway system is insanely huge, and goes super fast. Everyone on the subway wears black, and glares at people who aren't speaking French. The French, as great as their food, language, and culture are, are not exactly the nicest people in the world. 

The lessons that I came away with: tourists smell, Paris kind of smells too, the metro goes super fast but you still can't get one place to another without riding it for 30 minutes, french bread really is amazing, the museums are phenomenal, the French only wear black, with maybe some more black, and that they are cold people too...especially to people who don't speak French. But it was so much fun, and really a fascinating city. With only 3 days you only get to see really the touristy stuff, but it was fun to see and we had a great time. It felt like we were on vacation the whole time.

Of course, after an entire weekend of eating nothing but bread (it's the cheapest thing in Paris, and everything else is just really remarkably expensive), what else would I find when I come home? A literal stash of bread. Like Santa Clause leaves presents under the Christmas tree. Except it's a senile woman leaving a stash of bread under the microwave. 

And that is essentially my trip to Paris! Coming up: Sevilla and Cadíz....depending on how much time I have until class!

Words of Wisdom, from my host mother

I think I'm going to start making this a weekly post.

Tonight's dinner included some great ones. Read on, and wisen up; you'll be so enlightened:


"The Spanish have a very different perception of work than in the US. We don't take it so seriously. You just can't. It's because you don't know when you're going to die!"

"When you go to Germany, you need to go to the cathedral and light a prayer candle."

"The Holocaust was horrible. It can never happen again. You know, it could only happen because the Germans are such cold people. The Spanish, we are so fun, we love the sun, to dance, to have fun, but the Germans, no. And that's how the Holocaust could have happened."


I think I'm going to need to go on prescription pain killers.

So many things to blog about, parte uno: la playa, la comida

Oh mansies, so much to blog about. I ran out of memory space on my camera in a span of 4 days. Welcome to Europe. I'll make things brief, mostly because I'm actually in classes/working/planning trips/in a routine right now. Busy is good!

We had one week that was sunny and 60s/65 all week long, which was absolutely wonderful. The beach is about a 30 minute walk from the program study center, so my friend and I packed our peanut butter and nutella sandwiches and had a picnic lunch on the beach. It is gorgeous...too cold for bathing suits yet, but nice enough to sit and people watch. Note: this picture was taken in the first few days of February, and it was snowing in Nashville at the time. Just one of the reasons why I love Barca.

Making tortilla, outshining all the others
with my knife skills...thanks, dad!

Then this past Thursday, the program took us to a cooking class. We learned how to make pan con tomate (exactly what it says it is...bread rubbed with tomato, and a little bit of garlic and oil), tortilla española (kind of like an omelet, but with potatoes and onions baked into it on a stove top), paella valenciana, and crema catalana (a dessert in between creme brulee and flan). Everything was pretty amazing, and very, very typical catalonian food (excluding the paella, which in Catalonia is more sold only in places which seem to be the Spanish version of cheap side street barbecue places).

Here's the catch: typical me, I lost the recipes. However, my host mom makes better tortilla than this place did, and it is by far the best thing I have eaten since I've been here, so no worries...tortilla is coming to Houston/Vanderbilt soon enough.





Coming up next (mostly so that I can remember what I need to right about :P): Paris--getting lost in the subway, absolutely not learning French, and Haley adds a new number one to the bucket list.

Classes--um...say what? Again! (Where do you buy text books, anyways?)

Internship--Spanish "work ethic" versus American work ethic, aka "why are they shocked that I did exactly what they asked me to do?"

And finally, trip to Sevilla and Cadíz (two towns in southern Spain) this weekend!

<3 Barça!

Dear Spanish professor, ...uh, what?

So...we've started classes.

The classes with the program aren't difficult. Catalán is a bizarre language. I didn't have a class at la Universitat de Barcelona until today, actually, because both of my classes at the university were cancelled on the first day....what are Spanish professors doing with their lives?

So today, I finally had my first real Spanish class. My only response was: "lolwut?"

The syllabus itself is weird. The professor basically told us, "Here are a bunch of recommended works. I would REALLY RECOMMEND that you read these two, but we won't use them in class, and this is the only one that we'll be using in class, if you want to buy it." The syllabus just gives the days that "paper 1, 2, and 3" are due (but I'm pretty sure that's all of the details we'll be getting about papers 1, 2, and 3)...and that's about it.

Hello, where is my calendar with listed dates of when to read what? Where is the paragraph that says "I want 3 twelve page papers, one these dates"? Where is the part that says "YOU HAVE TO DO THIS"  instead of "eh, maybe you'd want to read this?" What is this country? It's hysterical. I don't even know when the final exam is!

And he talked. Really. Really. Really fast.

On the bright side, the material seems fascinating. Worth it? I hope so.

I also met with my internship boss today. My Spanish was extremely botched and I ended up waiting in the wrong place for her, but she is super sweet and we were both wearing purple (bonus points). She also decided that she is going to call me Megan for now on, because it's easier, which I really thought was fantastic (Spaniards can't pronounce "Haley", the "H" at a beginning of a word and "ay" sounds both do not exist in Spanish. lolz). It sounds like I'm going to be doing some project with the Spanish language department, that involves translating spanish academic articles to english and then putting them on a website? I don't know for sure yet, but it sounds interesting.

I went to the beach on Tuesday and my friend and I are going again tomorrow after class. I am so excited. Paris in 32 hours!!!!

Salvador Dalí is a genius, and peanut butter is God's gift to mankind

Highlights since my last blog post:

1. I am finally, FINALLY not sick any more. After killing approximately 2 trees worth of tissues, I think I'm actually healthy again. Thank the Lord, I will not be getting dirty looks on the subway every time I have to blow my nose.

2. I am now a proud owner of....yes. Peanut butter. You have to go the Corte Inglés to get it (the Corte Inglés is basically a super store...they'll have a lot of clothing brands, other floors will have electronic vendors, and then they have a grocery store that has PEANUT BUTTER). It's definitely not something that most Spaniards keep in their pantry, and many of them probably have no idea what it is.

3. It is 60 degrees and sunny here, and it is gorgeous. I walked around today and ran for a bit, which is good considering the absolutely ludicrous amount of calories from this weekend. A run was definitely necessary. My host mother's cooking isn't exactly healthy either. I really don't understand how can go on and on about how bad oil is for you, but then use so much butter/cheese/red meat. Oy.

A tunnel used for hiding during a bomb raid

4. This past week, our class took a trip to a bomb shelter in Barcelona. The shelter is from the Spanish civil war (Late 1930's, ended with Franco's take over and right around the same time that WWII began). They've kept the shelter in tact, and you can even see where Franco's troops dug in trying to find other tunnels of the shelter. The shelter is dug into a mountain, but the door just leads out onto a side street. If you were just passing down this street, you wouldn't have any idea what it was.

The shelter isn't like a building or anything, just a series of dug-in tunnels. People had about 2 minutes to run into the shelter and grab anything they might want to bring with them; there are little holes in the wall for people to put the possessions that they grabbed before running to the shelter)

Farmer's market on one of the main streets in Figueres

5. Figueres and the Salvador Dalí museum: On Saturday a few of us took a 2 hr train ride to Figueres, a small town north of Barcelona and pretty close to the French border, which is known for its Salvador Dalí museum. Even the train ride was exciting; as a proud born-and-raised Texan, I've never been on a regional train before, and the countryside is absolutely stunning. You pass by these antiquated, old-Spanish-style pueblos with the typical tiled roofs and small pastures, or more developed towns with narrow buildings in bright colors and such. Everything is green and snowcapped mountains are always in the background. Unfortunately, we were in the train the whole time and I wasn't able to get a picture. The town itself is one of these older, small towns that is just cute, for lack of a better word. Very different from Barcelona. Tourism has definitely changed the businesses of the town, but luckily there aren't many tourists in February. We did see a lot of French people, who come down to see the museum. Almost everything is in Catalán....the farther north you go, the closer you get to the heart of Catalunya.

Outside wall of the Dalí museum

The museum by itself was enough to make the trip. I simply can't do justice to the...amazingness of this museum. Dalí designed it himself; it is one of the three museums of his in Spain. The artwork is fantastic, and the museum itself is a piece of art. Dalí is a genius...insane...but a genius.

Unfortunately we didn't get a tour of the museum, which probably would have helped a lot because there is so, so much to every piece of his art work; however, his work is so complex that the point (or at least, what I got out of it) is to be able to stare at a painting on your on time table and notice all of the intricacies, and marvel in how one thing can look or merge into a completely different thing. I'm really not sure how to explain what I got out of it, but it was just phenomenal. I've never really been to an art museum where I actually laughed and enjoyed the artwork in it.

The museum itself adds to the artwork. This one particular room is absolutely massive, with a gigantic glass dome on top of it. The room isn't there to just showcase the artwork, it functions as a part of it. There are chairs where you can just sit and look at the room; it takes a good 5 minutes to take in every part of these rooms, which are completely covered with different types of art. (Also, that picture in the center that looks like Abraham Lincoln looks like a woman at a doorway when you're standing up close. We didn't realize that the little boxes all together made a face until someone took a picture of it and looked at it through the camera.)

We laughed at this room for about 5 minutes. There is this ridiculous staircase that you walk up and then you can look through a glass lens that completes the image of a face (the picture is taken through the glass lens). The lips are a couch; I didn't realize what the large archway was until we walked up the stairs. From looking straight on, it just looks like a bizarrely furnished room.

It's really not possible to show all of the amazing parts of the museum, but these give you an idea. It's so interactive, and you really never want to stop looking at one of his pieces just because there is so much detail and so much to look at.

(I still don't understand why it's in English....everything
else in the whole town is in freaking Catalán)

And just to demonstrate how we were very much in Catalunya and NOT Spain....graffiti on the wall outside of the museum. There was a ridge and you could look out and see this ridiculous, vast range of mountains in the background of the town. It was breathtaking; unfortunately, my camera died. But I did manage to get a picture of Catalonia's finest beforehand :P I knew about the Catalonian desire for independence before I got here, but I didn't realize how prominent it is. It is a very, very big deal here. And when you get to these smaller towns in Catalonia, it is really a big deal. I find it absolutely fascinating. I jokingly told my teacher that I was from Texas, "the best country in the world." He thought I was serious, that Texas is as serious about independence as Catalonia is. Love it.

Overall, a great weekend. Tomorrow we begin our real classes, which is both exciting (because I NO LONGER am in orientation, which I am STILL ecstatic about) and nerve wracking (because I am taking legitimate classes at the Universitat de Barcelona...nbd). I also have class at really bizarre times; 3 - 4:30 and then 6 - 7:30. The Spanish work on such a different time schedule.

Up next on "Comer, Jugar, Amor": Spanish cooking class with the program on Thursday, and Paris trip on Friday-Sunday! What will Haley do in the 1 and a half hour between her two courses? Will she ever discover how to get wifi at the university? And where is her classroom, anyways? Stay tuned!

One day more!

"Another day another destiny..."

ONE MORE DAY OF ORIENTATION AND THEN I'M DONE!!

Well, with orientation. Hallelujah, thank you Jesus. So looking forward to starting real classes (am I'm definitely not using the blog as an additional distraction from my studying...)

So I just had a conversation with my host mom, which was essentially the following:
Host mom: Are you going out tonight?
Me: No, I have an exam tomorrow.
Host mom: Yeah, but everyone goes out on Thursday night.
Me: It's a final exam.
Host mom: Well, the students usually go anyways.  Everyone goes out on Thursdays. And sometimes they'll just sleep on the steps of the university until class.

I love the Spanish.