miércoles, 26 de octubre de 2011

Cold and Wet

We took a little break from the Spanish culture and enjoyed pizza, pop and a movie at the school on Friday night. Almost everyone in the program came for the "noche de chic@s." (The "@" means chicos and chicas because it looks like an o and an a, and I thought it was cool so I utilized it.) The group voted on "New in Town," a romantic comedy. Of course, it was not complete without popcorn and candy, of which I ate way too much.

Saturday afternoon, some of us went to the area called San Juan del Aljarafe, just outside of the city. We quickly became masters of the metro and figured out how to get there with ease. I had already ran to the area a couple of times, but it was great to finally go with a camera and without being in a rush.

The most distinguishing feature of this area is the two statues that overlook Sevilla. First, there is a smaller statue of Mary holding her baby . Further up the mountain, there is a huge statue of Jesus that is connected to a church. We were able to take an elevator up the hill and enjoy the view of Sevilla from a distance while eating our sandwiches from our loving host moms. 

Saturday night, my roommates and I had a "guys night," along with our friends from another program and Mark's intercambio, Alvaro. Sadly, I made the mistake of only wearing shorts and a t shirt. If it were any other night in Sevilla thus far, this would have been fine. Unfortunately for me, however, Saturday night marked the beginning of chillier weather. In reality, it was probably in the high fifties, but having been accustomed to the eighty plus days and nights of Sevilla, it was a shock for my body. 

The cold air was not the only change in the weather. On Monday morning, it rained a lot. When I say a lot, I mean it dumped all the rain that has not fallen since the second day I arrived. This made for a very wet run, a nice change from the hot and humid ones in the past. A lot of students got blasted by water from passing cars driving over puddles on the way to school, but I was lucky enough to avoid this. 

This brings me to today. Today I am packing for my 9 day trip along with Luke, Mark, Kristen, and Kirsten. We have been excited for this trip since the day we planned it, and we are leaving tomorrow after school. Paris, Grenoble, Venice, and Barcelona are all in our plans and it is sure to be an adventure. 


lunes, 17 de octubre de 2011

Getting In the Groove

The past week of living in Spain has just flown by for me. I am definitely getting more and more comfortable with living in a different county and the huge differences that were so obvious when I first came are not as noticeable anymore. I no longer think it is strange to eat dinner at 9:30 at night and thankfully my stomach is getting used to it by now too. I can listen to a whole conversation without noticeably translating every word to English in my head. However, I still have some work to do when it comes to responding quickly. 

On Wednesday, Spain celebrated Columbus day, which meant that all the schools and most businesses were closed. It was a lot like our Independence Day. 

In the morning, we celebrated not having school by eating a huge breakfast. First, Isabel served us some American breakfast food: bacon and eggs. It was the first time I had something other than bread for breakfast at our house and it was great. I would have been content with just that, but then she made us fried bread and churros, a special Spanish treat. Of course, the churros and bread would not be complete without some sugar to add to it, and Isabel was not afraid to give us some. She melted a huge pot of chocolate and also gave us cinnamon and sugar to top it off. 

The night parade (from my balcony)
At night, there was a parade along the streets of Sevilla. I had one of the best views in the city because it passed right down our street. I was able to watch the parade from the comfort of my balcony while people below struggled to see what was happening. First, the band came with trumpets, drums, and tubas. After that, there was a huge golden altar and a lot of incense that ended up causing our whole bedroom to smell. 

On Saturday, Luke, Mark and I visited the Museum of Art and Customs. The museum was a little heavy on the "customs," end and had less of the "art," but there may have been more art in the area that was closed for remodeling. Most of the exhibits contained tools, furniture and clothes from the past. We spent the longest time looking at an exhibit that had replicas of rooms in a well-known Sevillan family's house. 

I spent most of Sunday with my intercambio, Nehemias. We went to his church to help set up for the service followed by getting coffee with one of his friends. His friend was from Mexico, so when we walked back to the church someone commented that the three of us made a very diverse group. 

martes, 11 de octubre de 2011

Favorite Child

On Saturday, my "intercambio," Nehemías, invited me to a birthday party for one of his friends. At first, I was a little hesitant about this because I knew that Nehemías would be the only person I knew at this party, but I decided to go.

The birthday party was held at Nehemías' church, and I knew that I should probably show up a little late since that is the Spanish thing to do. Unfortunately, I did not show up quite late enough, so I ended up making it there a little bit before Nehemías did. Luckily, everyone at the birthday party was welcoming and I had the opportunity to practice a lot of Spanish, being the only English-speaker there.The party ended up being a really good time complete with as many hot dogs as I could eat and good conversation with Nehemías and his friends.

For Sunday's lunch, I was the only one home with Isabel so she decided to make me something special, paella. I have heard a lot about the legendary paella, a dish with vegetables, rice, and different types of meat, but this was my first time eating it.

When I told our professor about my special treatment (getting to eat paella) the next day, she taught us the phrase "ojito derecho," which literally means "right eye," but it is a phrase used for the favorite child. She said I must be the ojito derecho of us three guys. After this, I asked her if she had a ojito derecho between her two sons. I expected the obvious "I love both my children equally," but instead she quickly responded by saying her younger son was her favorite because he is around more often. Honesty is the best policy for Spaniards.

On Tuesday, I went back to the Hospital de Caridad for the service class. I was sick of playing dominoes, so I decided to bring along my "Uno" cards for a change. Only one guy wanted to learn, but it was still a success in my mind because I was able to explain the whole game in Spanish. While we were playing, he tried to tell me that he was only 56 years old, but I did not buy it for a minute.

sábado, 8 de octubre de 2011

Touring Toledo: Day 2

Day two of our Toledo trip was just as great. After a peaceful sleep without the loud sounds of the city, we began the day with the hotel breakfast. 

After eating toast for breakfast every day for the last month, I would have been happy with a normal hotel breakfast, but this hotel went above and beyond. There were so many options and I did not know where to begin. Coffee cakes, melons, yogurts, donuts, ham, all of the options looked so great. I decided to just go for it and stuff myself with as many great foods as I could and in the end, our table was filled with plates from everyone's successful meal. 

The Lords Supper, outside of the entrance 
Next, we headed to the cathedral of Toledo, about five minutes away from our hotel. The cathedral was obviously quite a bit smaller than the one in Sevilla, but seeing as I have not fully explored that one, this one was very impressive. Outside, there was a huge carving of the Lord's Supper. When we got inside, we learned that the cathedral was intentionally set up to resemble a cross. The whole area was dimly lit and we made our way from the bottom to the top. 

At the bottom, we were surrounded by more amazing stone carvings and an area for worship. Next, we moved to the middle where we saw enormous wooden seats for important members of the church. The seats also had carvings, mostly of mythological creatures that represented the evil that lies outside of life in the church. 

In the center was my favorite part of the cathedral, the altar. Behind where the priest stands, there were amazing golden figures that depicted several scenes from Jesus' life. It was hard to take it all in at once, but there were scenes all the way from his birth in the stable to his death on the cross at the top, near the ceiling. 

As we continued, we went into the room where important members of the church made decisions. This room was much brighter and it was covered in paintings of past cardinals of Toledo. In the room following, there was a huge mural on the ceiling along with about 20 paintings on the walls, most of which were by El Greco. 

As a whole, the trip to Toledo went really well. I got to see some breathtaking artwork in the form of architecture, paintings, sculptures, windmills, and most importantly breakfast foods. 


viernes, 7 de octubre de 2011

Touring Toledo: Day 1

The past week of class was exceptionally good. Why is that? We only had three days of class followed by an overnight trip to Toledo, a smaller city not far from Madrid. It took a long bus ride to get there, even longer considering a Spanish law that says we have to stop for at least 45 minutes on the way, but we made it by about 2 PM on Thursday.


Before entering the actual city, we stopped at the "Windmills of La Mancha," which are an important part of the famous story of Don Quixote. In the story, he fights the windmills believing them to be monsters. It was great to finally be in the countryside and the windmills were huge.

The first thing I noticed about Toledo when we arrived is that it was much hillier than Sevilla. For this reason, nobody was riding bikes and running was difficult to say the least.

When we got to the hotel the girls were all anxious to see who there new roommates would be for the night, but us three guys knew we would not be separated. When we first entered our room, we thought there was a problem with the power because none of the lights turned on. Luckily, we figured out that we had to put our hotel key in a special slot in order for them to work before asking the front desk. I am guessing they do this to save on electricity, since it is much more expensive in Spain.

After settling in, we went on our first tour to a church called Santo Tomé. The church was famous for its huge painting by El Greco, about 15 by 12 feet. The painting depicts a burial on earth while people in heaven are taking care of the body's spirit. One of the people in the painting is actually  El Greco himself and he also hid his son in the picture.

The courtyard in the monastery 
Next, we went to a monastery. There was a huge courtyard for the monks to pray along with a huge worship center. To most, the sanctuary would seem very fancy. However, it was actually considered dull and simple because there were not that many paintings or decorations. Nonetheless, it was still a huge room with amazing architecture.

After the tours, we were free to explore the city. As we explored, we found sword and knife shops around almost every corner. We soon found out that this was because Toledo is where all of the swords from "The Lord of the Rings" movies were crafted.

sábado, 1 de octubre de 2011

Night Race

A few weeks ago, I signed up for a road race mostly along the river and along the streets of Seville. Friday, it was finally time. It was my first night race and it was also one of the longest races I have ever ran, 12 kilometers. 

At 9:10 PM, Isabel was anxious about the fact that I had not left yet. I did not think this was a big deal but fifteen minutes later, when I arrived to the scene of the race, I realized why. Thousands of people were lined up at the starting line. There were huge groups of teams, all wearing matching running attire. There were people dressed up as cows, matadors, and guys dressed like girls. I had to try to get my way to the front of this pack before the gun went off. 

Unfortunately, I did not make it very far; there were simply too many people and nowhere to go so I settled for a very mediocre starting position. When the race started, I had to walk at first. This slowly progressed into a light jog until I finally had enough space to start weaving around people. I continued doing this for the first two miles of the race until I finally had enough room to run in a straight line at the proper pace. 

The Olympic stadium, where we finished the race
We ran along the river and it was the perfect time to run because everyone was out at this time on a Friday night. Fans were everywhere and it helped me stay positive. Although it was annoying starting so far back, it made it fun because I spent the entire race passing people. 

When we got toward the end of the race, there was Spanish rap music playing to pump me up. Finally, we got to the Olympic stadium, where we finished the race with a lap around the track. I finished in 44:39, which I was happy with considering all the people I had to weave around. 

Even though there was no entry fee , I still received a goodie bag that included a t-shirt, running shorts, and a medal. It was a great experience and my legs are still pretty sore.