Going to miss this place.

I spent Friday afternoon at the Adsis house again. It was really good to spend time talking and laughing with them. I got to share a mother’s joy in watching her son start to walk. Alex has really come a long way in the months that I’ve been here, and though he’s still not sure about letting go of the coffee table, he’s started to take his first steps. After lunch Chelu and Pedro zonked out on the couch. It was pretty funny to see them side by side with their heads leaned over in the same direction just sleeping. It took them about 5 minutes.

Saturday afternoon I helped prepare vegetables for the gran Paella Solidaria. At my church, we were having a big fundraiser to send money to Medellin, Columbia. We were selling lunch (Paella). Their slogan was 1 plate here, 5 in Medellin. Anyway, I never chopped so many onions in my life, and oh did it burn. On Sunday, I saw the huge frying pan they had borrowed. It was about 7 feet in diameter and was made to serve about 600. It was pretty crazy. For those who don’t know Paella is a typical Spanish dish (of Valencia) that’s mostly fried rice (flavored with saffron which isn’t really saffron since saffron is expensive) with vegetables and meat (especially seafood). Also more squid than I’ve seen in one place before. Unfortunately it was unbearably hot and not many people ventured out from their homes, so I believe we ended up serving around 250 people. Washing the frying pan was an adventure to say the least. In the end and after expenses I think we will be able to send about 1000€ to Columbia.

Today I helped Martin carry his bags to the bus station. He’s off to Prague. It was kind of sad to see him go. We even got him to go out to a Tapas Bar with us last night. He kept thinking I was saying Topless Bar (he speaks English too), so at first I was having hard time convincing him to go. Anyway it was the first and last time that he went out while here in Spain as far as Lucian and I know. We already have someone to replace him though. Somehow Lucian has connections, but anyway, a French girl that has an internship at the University this summer has already started moving in. Her Spanish is better than mine was when I got here and she knows some English. However, though she’s been told multiple times that I don’t speak a word of French, she continues to talk to me in French. If there’s something that she can’t seem to remember in Spanish she goes to French and looks at me expectantly. She came only yesterday and I think already it’s been clearly demonstrated that I don’t understand her when she speaks French. Also asked me if I thought she could where a thong to work (she meant sandals). Ahh well, the joys of international living situations. Lucian and I are both here only another 2 to 3 weeks, so she’ll be on her own then.

Other than that study study study. Hope everyone is enjoying their summers back home in the States or Uganda if you’re Simon.

Still have off days...

This is from a while ago, but I figured I'd put it up. Still remember that cursed day...

Argh

So yesterday was an off day. Couldn’t believe how many mistakes I was making and how little I was understanding. I can’t even remember some of the stupid things I said. For just a sampling…

I got up out of a chair and all of my joints cracked. Sonia thought I was dying, but I said not to worry, my knees and my screws always do that. Should have been ankles (tornilla, tobillo). I knew that Oscar had founded the adsis house in Chile. We were talking about that and I asked him when he melted the house (fundir, fundar). Later when working with their computers, I tried to say something about how XP worked with externals, I something completely unintelligible came out that was neither English nor Spanish. I have no idea… It went on from there. This, of course, is in addition to the habitual grammatical errors, using el when I should use la, or incorrectly conjugating my verbs. Sometimes I’m just back to square one. :)

London

This will mostly be throwing some pictures up for the family since I haven´t blogged in forever. Someone in the comp. lab is listening to Pearl Jam. I like it, but others don´t seem to appreciate it so much. It´s 22 degrees and sunny and I´m happy to be here despite the fact that I have loads of work to be doing. I hung out my laundry this morning and am going to miss the ability to do that. When I go home from the lab, I´ll stop on the way and get a loaf of bread for 42 cents. This evening I´ll be running with Jochen again. It´ll be one of the last times since he doesn´t have to take exams (only a certificate of attendance) and will be going home soon. Tomorrow I´m going to check out Zamora with Sonia. It´s not too far and the University of Salamanca has a campus there that she attends. So that´s life in a nutshell. Some days I´m lazy, but today I´m ready to live, read, learn Spanish and run.

So it was great to visit London and see Pearl and David. This was about a month ago now...I think. Though there wasn´t much sun, the weather was nice and didn´t really rain on us ever. I was actually rather unimpressed with Buckingham Palace though the flowers out front were pretty. The gardens in general were impressive and the flowers were in full bloom, so it was gorgeous.

This was the gate to the Palace. I thought the crest was kind of neat. This was probably the most impressive part of the palace, from the outside anyway.
So this is a view of Parliament and Big Ben and the River Thames (pronounced Tems apparently). Pearl and I actually waited and were able to go in and watch some of a meeting of the House of Commons. It was actually a few committees about the government in Northern Ireland. It was interesting and fun to watch how they went back and forth.
Taken from the bridge and looking in the opposite direction I can see the London Eye and the Aquarium. Yes the London Eye is a giant bicycle wheel and it costs 13 pounds to ride it. Kind of neat though.
Also in Westminster (other than the palace) is of course Westminster Abbey. I liked it. This where Kings and Queens, etc. are coronated by the Archbishop of Canterbury whom I believe is otherwise unconnected with this church.
This is just a view of the skyline complete with Pearl´s egg, her landmark for getting home. Apparently, they actually call it the gerkin, but it doesn´t look like a pickle, it looks like an egg.
Most of my time spent in the UK was spent wandering around. I enjoyed it. I now understand the Mind the Gap t-shirts which I´d not even heard of before. I was introduced to authentic British culture such as Pret sandwiches and Fish and Chips. I don´t have pictures of it, but the National Library was impressive. They have an amazingly complete collection of stamps. I also saw the original Alice in Wonderland among other books, and Pearl and I saw Magna Carta. It was strange to be there seeing that. Not your everyday type of activity. Well, I should probably head off and do some work. I think I´ll probably skip bloggin about Cáceres and Plasencia, but that´s alright. They´re in Extremadura, the autonomy south of where I am. They were pretty and I´m glad to have visited them, but there was nothing too amazing. I´ll try and write something about graduation in the near future. I won´t have digested all of that for quite some time. And here´s a picture of the Great White Pelicans in the park in front of Buckingham Palace.

Sierra de Béjar

So it's been a few weeks now since I went to Sierra de Béjar. Pearl came to visit from London, and we went with Sonia. It's about an hour south of Salamanca (the city), and just barely within the province of Salamanca. It was really good for me to escape the city for a day. The gardens and green spaces here in Salamanca are gorgeous right now as they're colorful and filled with flowers, but it's not the same, and there's just not open space. So we went hiking on a route that took us past Peña de la Cruz and Peña Negra (Cross Peak and Black Peak, respectively). It seemed like a fairly long hike up, and was steeper at the end. Peña de la Cruz was first. It´s a giant cross built from granite. The mountains are just covered with huge, round, granite rocks.

Here´s Pearl and Sonia accompanied by the large pieces of granite. View of the other part of the mountain range on the way up. It had snow, so we decided to save that for next time. After much more hiking, we found ourselves at the top of Peña Negra. We're currently on a shorter little range of mountain, and you can see the other one over yonder. In between lies a valley. Driving into Béjar you can see up the valley and see just the dam from below. It was neat to hike up over it and see the lake from the top.And looking off in the opposite direction...The clouds were actually surprisingly close and eye level. It really played with our perception. It's hard to focus on a cloud. Mmm...so pretty.

Cheating

It's been forever since I've blogged, so I felt like I should take a moment to write something. Since Easter break I've made trips to Sierra de Béjar, Cáceres, Plasencia, and London. Photos and more details are forthcoming. For me time is moving at Mach 5. Could be mach 4, but after it reaches mach speed I can't really tell the difference. I've finally grown accostumed to living here and all too soon I'll have to go. I've really bumped up the working. This month is now crunch time. It's not like crunch time at Olin where you've been working and stressed all semester and now you have to do more. No, I've got it pretty easy. It's more like I've had the same work to do for the entire semester, have only done a small fraction of it, and now I have the remainder sitting in front of me. It shouldn't be undoable though.

My professor for Social Movements in Contemporary Spain took time to explain the final exam yesterday. I'll have the choice of doing a historical commentary on some article pertinent to the history studied in the class or I can expound upon one of the chapters I've read in the book. We have to read and report on 5 chapters. It seems that his motivation for giving a final is another way to make sure that the students know the material (of course). However, what he means by that is that they've actually read the book and that their reports and summaries aren't simply plagiarized and if they are, that at least they've memorized them. He said flat out that he'll be looking for plagiarism and that he expects it. Not only that, he said that he knows that he has to be more careful with the Spanish students and European students in general than with the Americans who usually seem to do their own work. Such a different world here. Talking to my Erasmus friends and my roommates, the general philosophy seems to be that if you can cheat or in some way take advantage (be it in school or in other sectors of life), and do it without getting caught, then you deserve respect. More power to you, you've cheated the system. I don't know where this mindset comes from. It's not everyone, but it's prevalent nonetheless and I don't like it.

In other news I was accepted and will be working as a LeadAmerica Team Leader this summer. I'm excited. It's not a high-powered engineering internship, but my coming back late ruled out those options. It's only three sessions, but it will be a good opportunity for me. I really enjoy working with people, organizing events, tutoring, etc. I might even be chipper. We'll see.

I'll be going back to Olin for commencement. I decided I couldn't miss it and bought my overpriced fly from europe ticket. For random Olin people reading this, I'll need a place to sleep Thursday through Sunday nights. :) Thanks!

Processions

Here in Salamanca and throughout much of Spain all of last week was quite the spectacle. Starting the Friday before Good Friday, there are religious processions everyday. Different ‘cofrades’ each have their own specific manner of dress and doing the processions. Some of them start during the night at 9pm. Others are during the day, and few are early in the morning starting at 5 or 7am. Each procession has one or more ‘pasos’ which is kind of like a float. It’s decorated with flowers and candles and usually has a statue of Jesus or of Mary. They’re carried by people all during the procession, and some of them had over 100 people carrying them. Many of the processions remember the walk that Jesus took bearing the cross, and a few do a Via Crucis (Stations of the Cross) as they go. Even the people here know that the cofrades look like KKK uniforms, but are quick to point out that they’ve been doing this much longer than that, and they had these uniforms before the US even existed.
Others are more normal in dress. This was my favorite procession which passed over the Roman Bridge.On Easter Sunday, many of the cofrades march in a a procession together. One paso with Jesus and one with the Virgin meet in the Plaza Mayor and ‘dance.’ It was something to see. There were also people in traditional Salmatine dress that danced. The plaza was packed and there were a number of TV stations there as well. My favorites were the processions that left early in the morning because they were less of a tourist spectacle. No one gets up at 7am here. It’s still dark at 7, it’s getting light at 8, and sunrise has got to be somewhere around there. Crazy Spain. :)

Tortilla...how you taunt me so

Now that I've settled in for the most part, I've been trying to cook a few 'Spanish' dishes. I'm starting easy, and there are a few things I can do that don't really count as cooking that do count as Spanish. This includes beans and chorizo, bread at every meal, nesquik for breakfast, and flan....mmm...flan. Tortilla should be simple. It's potatoes, eggs, onion, and salt. Here was my first attempt.
There was definitely room for improvement, but it tasted right. Unfortunately the second time turned out much worse. Third time's a charm? So I'm not much of a cook. It's probably good though, because we haven't much of a kitchen, nor cooking utensils.

Also wanted to post the picture of the birds that live on my clothes line for Dad. It's not a great shot. I like them. It's kinda nice to just have them there in the midst of the city. It's not the same as the birds on the feeder with the woods back home, but it's better than nothing.

Rome

Sorry, this is going to be a long one. Bear with me…

I was blessed to have the opportunity to spend last week in Rome. I went there with a group of ‘jovenes’ (young people) from my church, San Juan de Mata. It’s run by the Trinitarians (a religious order) who also have a house in Rome, so we were fortunate enough to stay there for the week. During the week, we moved very slowly as a group, often having to stop and wait for one or two people (out of twelve) to shop or look at something. By the end of the week I found this infuriating, especially since Thursday morning we were going to see the catacombs, but were too late. Then we were going to go back when they were open in the afternoon, but were too late, and then were going to go Friday morning, but guess what? Too late. Argh…me hacían loco. So now that that is out of my system, I’ll try to do no more complaining this entry.

On the flight there I got my first view of the Mediterranean. Hopefully some day I’ll see it when I’m not in a plane…maybe a boat or from the beach. We flew over 3 islands on the way there (Minora, Majorca, and Corsica?). Landing in Italy was the same as landing in Spain at first. It was kind of surreal for me to think that here I was in Italy. It was a pleasant change from Spain though. It was very green and there were farms all around, and except for some mountains in the background, it actually reminded me very much of home.

Sunday we went straight to the Vatican Museums which have free admission the last Sunday of every month. This meant the line was huge and we waited for about 2 hours, but you can’t beat free I suppose. The main motivation for going to the museums is the Sistine Chapel. We didn’t spend nearly enough time in the chapel (5min?), but it was still amazing to see. Just as amazing was running into Heidi there. Heidi is a Wellesley student whom I know through Bible Talk at Olin. She’s been studying in France since September and was visiting Rome that day with two Wellesley friends studying in Cordoba. It was terrific to see a familiar face. Even though I’d seen Madge and Jo not too long ago, it definitely made my day. :) How crazy is that? Randomly run into someone you know while in Rome…crazy…still getting over that one. Of course there’s the famous panel with God and Adam. There’s also one two panels down that I guess is semi-famous. It depicts a wrathful God on the right and God turned and flying away? on the left. As Heidi pointed out, we got to see God’s butt. Hah.

Also had my first view of the Piazza di San Pietro (Plaza of Saint Peter) and the Basilica of Saint Peter. It was incredible to walk into the plaza through the pillars and just to think that I was actually standing there.

Monday we went to the Colosseum. This was another one of those crazy moments just because it’s so famous. It’s something you see so much of, but it’s always in a different world and suddenly you’re in that world. It’s fairly imposing even as worn as it is. It’s impressive to think what it must’ve been like when it was new and viewed without the modern buildings around it. Right next to the Colosseum, we saw the Foro Romano and Palatino. They are the ruins of the Roman Forum. They don’t look like much now, but from the hill it’s quite the view. Also saw the Altar della Patria, a monument to the first King of a unified Italy. It’s ginormous for a monument. It’s so much bigger than anything around it, that it’s easily viewed from any vantage points in the city. I don’t know why exactly, but I found it fascinating. There are also two guards and lit flames in the front. They guard the tomb of the unknown soldier, just like we have in Arlington.

Tuesday we were privileged to see the Vatican Gardens. The Trinitarians there had made reservations to us. We were told that they only admit 100 people a day, but I have to think it’s 100 people at a time. Either way, it worked out nicely that you can wander and see the gardens without it being swamped with tourists as is the rest of the city. (Granted this is Vatican City and not actually Rome.) The Gardens were pretty and had a good view of the Basilica from the back. The church in the cemetery of Vatican city also had this interesting statue in it. Not your typical Catholic church adorning material, but interesting at the very least. In the evening we visited the Trinitarians main house and met the leaders of the order. One was an Indian man who studied in Baltimore for many years. We enjoyed speaking English for a while.

Wednesday we had our audience with the Pope. It wasn’t a private audience inside the Basilica, as this is all but impossible, but the Trinitarians had managed to get us tickets to the audience Wednesday morning in the Plaza. The plaza was gated off with guards and getting in was like going through airport security. The readings and his message were given in 5 or 6 languages…can’t quite remember (Italian, English, German, Spanish, something that sounded like Russian to me, but I wouldn’t know, and maybe something else). In Spanish, the Pope gave a special welcome to the Young People from San Juan de Mata in Salamanca Spain. Had our group on the list I suppose. It was kind of exciting, but more like a huge pep rally than anything else. The one thing I hate about large groups is how it always works that we’re sitting and everyone can see decently well, then some people stand and then everyone has to stand. Next people are standing on chairs and then everyone is on the chairs…excellent. We all had a better view when we were sitting…. Anyway, yes the red speck is Benedict XVI.

Thursday had an Italian meal. Panzerotti Ricotti e Spinaci con Condimenti de Gargonzola e noci. Ricotta and Spinach filled ravioli in a gorgonzola cheese and walnut sauce. OMG….still drooling and now I’m hungry. Also got to see the Basilica of Saint Paul. It has a gigantic statue of Saint Paul in the front wielding a sword and looking (as Fran pointed out) much like Gandalf. Anyway, David told me the sword represents both the word of God and also the fact that Paul fought for Christianity (though it wasn’t called that yet) in the diaspora. The inside was done in a much different style than any of the cathedrals I’ve been in. It’s extremely ornate and there’s lots of gold everywhere. It also has a portrait of every single pope ever up near the ceiling. It’s quite impressive really. Also here's the Castille Sant'Angelo and the River Tiber.

This guy's now on the crest of Rome. It's the wolf feeding Romulus and Remus, founders of Rome. Kinda weird if you ask me, but they seem to like it.

Then Friday after our failed attempt to see the catacombs I finally decided to keep walking the next time they stopped to shop. It paid off. We were all planning to climb the cupola (dome) of Saint Peter’s. We were more than a mile but less than two from it, and we were going to take a bus. Anyway, over so short a distance, I got there 1.5 hours ahead them. They were (guess what?) to late to see climb the cupola as the line was too long. Andrew got to see it though, and it was an amazing view of the city. The Americans behind me were tripping out as we went up and couldn’t figure out why the walls started to slant and curve sideways as we were trying to climb up the stairs. Yes, it did crazy things to my perspective and was hard to balance, but kind of made sense. We were after all climbing up a dome, no? Between the interior and exterior walls, I expect there wasn’t a whole lot of extra space for stairwells. The Plaza of Saint Peter from the top of the cupola was precious.

Saturday I came back home and was exhausted. Though at many points annoyed during the trip, retrospect makes things better, and I really had a fantastic time. I can still hardly believe I was there. Still have to go back someday to see the catacombs. I hear they’re great.

Madrid

So two weeks ago I made a weekend trip to Madrid to see Madge and Jo. Madge had come to Spain to visit, well Spain and me (Thanks Madge!), and Jo had come with the Wellesley choir. On Friday Madge and I saw the Palacio Real, the Cathedral and the Plaza Mayor. Though Jo later told us the inside was really impressive, we only saw the Palace from the outside. It was still fairly impressive from the outside. The cathedral was nice, but Madge noted the very modern looking stained glass windows. My friend Miguel later told me that the Cathedral in Madrid is very new. It was started only about 200 years about, but never really made any progress. When they finally decided to get to it, the entire thing was basically constructed in 30 years and was then finished at the end of this only about 15 years ago. The one thing it does have was an amazingly impressive Spanish organ complete with they horizontal pipes called trumpetería that were added around 1650 (Huzzah for connections with my history of Spanish music class!). As far as the Plaza Mayor goes, I definitely like mine in Salamanca better. It may have something to do with living here, but the painted walls just weren’t doing it for me. Madge is pretty though.

Saturday we visited El Prado and el Museo Nacional de Reina Sofia. Prado is the premier art museum in Spain. Madge and I weren’t terribly impressed. It contains lots of works by Goya, Velazquez, and Spanish artists in general. It’s mostly baroque art featuring religious themes and overly rotund, nude babies. Also has a lot of portraits of dukes, kings, queens, and the like. It was amazing for me to see Bosch’s (Flemish artist) “Garden of Delights.” Also really enjoyed Goya’s Third of May and black paintings. It was so strange, because they are pictures I remember Mr. Luedke teaching me in AP Euro as he strived to cover art as well. I loved that class. It was surreal to see them in person. Velazquez’s “Las Meninas” was also fun. Susie informed me that she’d actually just studied that in class, and her professor had mentioned how the reflection was impossible at that angle unless the king and queen were sitting below the floor. Hah.

We both enjoyed the Reina Sofia much more. It’s Spain’s Modern Art museum. One temporary exhibit featured burnt plastic bags on canvas, but after that it improved. One huge exhibit by Adolfo Schlosser displayed many geometric and organic shapes and designs all made with natural materials and lots of wood. It was neat, but as Madge said often appealed more to my engineering side than my artistic one. The Reina Sofia also houses many works by Salvador Dali and Picasso. The rooms devoted to Dali were…interesting. Suffice to say that he must have been taking some strong hallucinogenic and he was a dirty, dirty man. The works were very impressive, however. Picasso’s Guernica is housed there. It’s a huge canvas and something I’d seen in text books. I’d never thought much of it before, but standing in front of it was powerful. Part of it was simply its notoriety, but also seeing the original work and understanding the brutal history (fire bombing during the Spanish Civil War) that inspired it made it moving for me. Unfortunately the Reina Sofia didn't allow pictures.

Seeing both Madge and Jo was really a great blessing. We saw the Park of Buen Retiro (Madrid’s largest park) and wandered the city a little. Just speaking English, being understood, and understanding without thinking was a really nice surprise. I didn’t realize how much I missed it. Talking with them really made me miss Olin, my friends, and family. It was hard to say goodbye. Like Madge said, at least we’ll be enthusiastic to move back to Olin in the fall and live with our good friends.

Apartment Dwelling

So I’ve successfully moved into my new apartment. I’m not far from where I used to live, but I’ve a feeling that my life will be significantly different. I’d been living with an older married couple where I paid for room and food and was entirely taken care of. Unfortunately, this also meant entirely dependent which was starting to get to me. I now live in an apartment with two Erasmus students. One’s from Romania, Lucian, and the other from Slovakia, Martin. Martin was actually born in the Czech Republic and then lived in DC for 10 years. They’re both very nice guys, easy to get along with, and helpful in terms of many things excepting cleaning. The apartment was a dump. My room is under control and last week I swept and mopped all the floors but their bedrooms. This stuff I don’t mind so much since it shouldn’t have to be done often and I realize no one person is specifically responsible for it. Tonight I’m going to talk to them about dishes, however. You eat, make dishes, and then wash dishes. Seems like a simple enough system, but apparently not. So far I refuse to wash their dishes, cause I really don’t want to start that habit, but this is the third day for most of the stuff in the sink. It’s in my way, it smells bad, and I need those dishes. So we’re going to have a chat tonight.

I hate being the annoying new guy who makes them change their ways, but I’m trying to start slow. After all, if I’m cleaning public spaces, I can expect them to do their own dishes right? I’ve also started such novel concepts as recycling and shower curtain that closes. I don’t understand how recycling can be so much harder when either way we have to take trash or recycling out to the street and place it in the bin. The recycling bins are about 50m further.

So that’s my complaining, but actually all in all things are good. I enjoy doing real grocery shopping and though it looks like most dishes consist of pasta, beans, or rice plus chicken or pork, I’m not starving yet and things are going well. I also shower, sleep, and eat on my own schedule which is a nice change of pace.

Cleaning did however bring me one nasty surprise. The light fixture on the left side of our mirror in the bathroom…well…it electrocutes you. I kinda brushed it and thought I was crazy at first, but did it again and it definitely electrocutes you. Even with the lights off. I know, what kind of idiot tries it a third time? Reminds me of our fluid taser back in freshmen year (woot Chris and Madge). Going to need to get some caution tape for that...