Oh oh, I want some more... of Madrid!

This past weekend I had planned to go to Córdoba to escape the rain, until a) I found out that my class had a field trip and b) I got sick.  Not horribly sick, but an annoying cold that would not be pleasant to have on a five-hour bus ride.  Luckily it turned out to be a great weekend, despite a bit of rain.

Friday

Friday morning we had a hellish metro ride (involving closings, transfers, and general annoyance) to the Moncloa metro stop to meet the IES group to go to el Palacio del Pardo, Franco’s old residence as well as the home of Spanish royalty and their guests.  We could just TELL that the tour guide loved her job.  I believe David put it best when he said “Oh my god! She’s one of the teachers from Peanuts!”  At one point I just started saying along with her "Vamos a otra habitacion." She said it before leaving EVERY ROOM IN THE PALACE.  The place actually has a ton of history, almost as much as it does chandeliers.  Maybe it was just too early in the day for a monotone.  Afterward a few of us stopped at a nearby bar for some tapas and sangría (it's just so abundant and delicious here).

Entrance to the Palacio del Pardo. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside.

Beautiful gardens outside the palacio

We’ll not speak of Friday night here.  However, I will say that it is cheaper to be a girl in Madrid than it is to be a guy, especially before 2am. 

Saturday

This is how Saturday went down:

1.       Wake up super thirsty, wait for señora to leave kitchen, eat rest of my brie on toast and drink a juice box.

2.       Look up cheap flights on Ryanair .

3.       Eat comida without scary crazy political debate (“I had more liberties when Franco was dictator than I do now.” ß Carmen. Actual quote (translated))

4.       Attempt to nap, fail.

5.       Meet Abby, buy new jacket for €11.

6.       Metro to Sol, fail to find Joy (nightclub), Veronica finds us and leads us there.

7.       Arrive at Joy, am met with rapid Spanish, Veronica asks me “¿Quieres?” and I say “Sí” not knowing what’s going on.

8.       I find out what’s going on.

9.       We’re led into the club and down some stairs into the basement.

10.   I surprise Tyler Glenn of Neon Trees with my fluent American English and he tells me he likes my hair and asks me what I’m doing in Madrid.

11.   Band moves down the line, Tyler calls to me from other end of the room asking me what I’m studying (AKA MAKES EFFORT TO FIND OUT FACTS ABOUT ME).

12.   I tell Chris Allen of Neon Trees I like his cameo cat pin, he gives me the card of the store where he bought it (near the club).

13.   I tell Elaine Bradley of Neon Trees that I think she’s fabulous. She tells me she likes my jacket (the one I bought for €11), and that she just bought hers (super cool) at the same store as the cat pin.

14.   Get my socks rocked off by Neon Trees.  Wowza.

15.   Lose umbrella. Damn. It’s gone now. Oh well. Good thing my new coat has a hood.

16.   Eat delicious tapas with Abby, Veronica, y Jesica (is that how you spell it?), try morcilla (Spanish blood sausage) and discover it is DELICIOUS.

17.   Float home to my bed and write blog entry.

Aaaaand here are some pictures from the show:

Me backstage with Neon Trees! They were SO nice! From left: Branden Campbell (bass), Chris Allen (guitar), moi, Tyler Glenn (vocals, keyboards), Elaine Bradley (drums and awesomeness)

Me and Abby with our glowsticks

Veronica and me

I would LOVE to be a concert photog...

Bass player doubles as mic stand. Aww.

Sunday

Sunday was a mostly lazy day.  I worked on homework and Rachel, Abby, and I went to see Enredados, or Tangled, as it is known in the English-speaking world.  You know, the recent animated Disney movie about Rapunzel.  When we went up to buy our tickets the girl in the booth said “You know the whole movie is in Spanish, right?”  Yes.  Thanks for that.  I think we can handle a Disney movie in Spanish.

Actually, the movie was incredibly easy to understand, though I’m sure when I see it in English I’ll notice some jokes that went over my head.  Also, it was REALLY GOOD.  Go see it as soon as you can if you haven’t already.  I don’t think it’s in theaters anymore in the United States though.  I’m sure it’s great in English but the songs were fantastic in Spanish.  I really enjoyed it.

Spanish Lesson of the Day: "Tomar el pelo," literally translated, means "to pull someone's hair."  In English we'd say "to pull someone's leg," i.e. to fool someone. So this says "No one pulls their leg!" But it's funny because "pelo" means "hair" and it's Rapunzel.... ahaha.

Oh, and I finally remembered to take pictures of some cool graffiti near my place.  It’s everywhere here but a lot of it is actually pretty cool:

I like this guy. I pass him every day.

Nothing says love like spray paint.

I hope you liked these graffiti photos because Blogspot was being a pain about uploading them.

A lovely weekend in Madrid.  Now I just have to get through this week and get over my cold because I’m off to Barcelona this Thursday!  Gaudí had better prepare himself because I’m going to be all over him (or at least his buildings).

Hasta luego!

Adventures in Pais Vasco: Euskera-tastic!

Warning: This blog contains a large amount of architecture geekery.  Not for small children.

This past weekend was the IES-sponsored trip to Bilbao and San Sebastian, cities in the País Vasco region of Spain.  A little background about this place: País Vasco, or Basque Country, has been trying to become its own country for some time, due to its own rich culture and distinct language.  The Basque language, Euskera, is completely unlike any other language in the world and its origins are a mystery.  I say it’s aliens.  The language is heavy with X’s and Z’s and is insanely fun to try to pronounce.

I was extremely excited to find out IES was doing a trip to Bilbao, mostly because of the Guggenheim museum there which was designed by my favorite architect, Frank Gehry, who also designed the amphitheater in Millenium Park in Chicago, among other things.  I had no idea how much more there was to Bilbao.

The bus ride there was about four and a half hours long, the first two of which were quite uncomfortable as the girl in front of me decided to lean her seat back all the way so she could nap comfortably.  Thanks.  It didn’t help that when she stretched her arms she almost punched me in the face.  The bus stopped in a town called Lerma and we ate a delicious, ham-filled breakfast at a hotel/castle.

Gaelle showing off her awesome breakfast

A few hours later our bus arrived in Bilbao.  I could immediately tell it was different from the other Spanish cities I had visited.  I’m not really sure what it was, but I liked it.  A little while after we checked into our hotel, we split up into tour groups and walked around the whole city.  We passed under an impressive bridge designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava on the way to the Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa (Euskera for “Museum”).  I freaked out quite a bit and took too many pictures.  I kept having to run to catch up with the tour group.

Bridge designed by Calatrava

AAAAAHHH!!! The Guggenheim is being attacked by a giant spider!!

Me and my best friend, the Bilbao Guggenheim

We walked around the rest of the city, parts of which were much older than the modern Guggenheim.  In fact, the buildings from the 19^th century made it feel as if we had been transported to the World Showcase pavilion at EPCOT.  There was a building that looked German, another Italian, one French, one Spanish, and so on.  We even came across a Chinese-style house.  Our walk held some other surprises, such as a fountain on the side of a building that you could drink from.

Refreshing.

Once our tour was over we walked around a bit, mostly down a street looking for dinner.  However, we forgot how late people eat dinner and were told by a few places that they didn’t open their kitchen until 7:30.  We opted instead to satisfy our pressing need for helado.  It was necessary and delicious.  A lot of people in our program went out to the clubs that night, but I wasn’t really in the mood.  One girl said she was instead going to walk over to the Guggenheim and take some nighttime pictures of it, and I was eager to join her.  Honestly, I would much rather take photos of a beautiful building at 1 am than pay too much money to dance to too-loud music in a sweaty club.  But that’s just me.  Besides, we had to be up early for San Sebastian the next day.

Helado. Si.

Calatrava bridge by night. Have I mentioned how much I love my camera?

Sometimes Weather.com lies.  Pais Vasco was supposed to be sunny and warm all weekend, but of course the day we go to the beach city of San Sebastian it was cold and rainy.  I hadn’t brought my umbrella, so I ended up using my scarf as a babushka.  Despite the gloomy weather, San Sebastian was a very cool city, a sort of New England-meets-Europe port.  We did another walking tour, past a few cathedrals and up on the harbor, to the top of a cliff with a beautiful view of the ocean and a little island in the middle of the bay with a little house on the top.

Yeah, just keep going straight and you'll hit France. Can't miss it.

IES fed us lunch at a local restaurant.  We had seafood tortilla (YUM) and steak (OH SO GOOD) and SIDRA!! Sidra is hard cider, essentially apple wine.  Most people didn’t like it, but I drank two glasses like it was juice.  I had it once before in Madrid at Casa Mingo, but I haven’t blogged about that place yet (it deserves its own blog, surely).  After lunch we had some free time and I couldn’t resist buying a big cookie in a pastry shop.  I was expecting it to be just a big sugar cookie, but when I tasted it I was met with the strong flavor of black licorice.  It was like Good & Plenty in cookie form.  Luckily I like black licorice, but it was unexpected.

The bus ride from San Sebastian back to Bilbao was silent as everyone was asleep.  I don’t think I slept but I popped in my earbuds and shut out the world for an hour and a half.  We had planned to do some shopping and maybe go out when we got back, but it was all we could do to stay awake long enough to find something to eat.  We ended up in the old part of town eating pinchos (the Basque version of tapas) at a bar that was playing Mecano, a Spanish pop band from the 80s.  They’re pretty good, and we were all relieved that finally we were at a place that was playing Spanish music and not American (honestly, it’s all I hear here).

Mecano, "Hijo de la luna"

We got dessert at a cool coffee shop that I would probably hang out at if I lived nearby.  Abby and Rachel got cake and I got churros y chocolate, but the chocolate was far less than delicious so I just ate the churros.  I knew I should have ordered the Bailey’s frappuccino.  Oh well.  We made it back to the hotel and crashed after watching some MTV.  It played a Kylie Minogue video, which my Contemporary Spanish Theater professor Emilio would have appreciated.  I must remember to blog about him later.  It seems I am quite behind.  He probably deserves his own blog, actually.

I’m glad we went to bed early, because I was wide awake the next day for what I had been looking forward to for years: visiting the Guggenheim Bilbao!  Okay, admittedly I had no idea what was inside.  All I knew was that the building was awesome.  The exhibits inside actually were very cool.  The featured one there was called “Haunted” and mostly consisted of creepy photographs, paintings, and videos.  My favorite exhibit was a collection of very tall wooden swirly things.  Honestly I can’t remember the name of it or the artist.  But you could walk through the spirals.  Pictures weren’t allowed but I ignored the signs and took pictures without the flash when the docents weren’t looking.  I know, I’m a badass.

Abby and Rachel being my accomplices

I also took a zillion pictures outside.  Far too many.  Here are a few:

After we had walked through the museum we hit the gift shop.  I bought a lot but spent less money than I expected.  For about 20€ I bought a poster of the museum (I may get it framed), two postcards, a cool notebook, and a magnet.  I considered buying some interesting rings but didn’t feel like paying the 15€.  When it was finally time to leave we met up with the rest of the IES students at the giant dog-shaped topiary in front of the museum, or as our Spanish tour guide called it, “The Poopy.”  Oh Spanish accent, you so funny.

I was sad to leave Bilbao behind, but to be honest I was looking forward to the long bus ride as I was exhausted.  We stopped again in Lerma, for lunch, at a restaurant that was far too small for our whole group.  I ordered a bocadillo de tortilla and received it only a few minutes before we had to leave.  I think IES overestimated the capacity of the place.  Our second leg of the journey, after lunch, consisted of the front half of our bus singing Disney and 90s boy band songs, as well as a Spanish song taught to us by chaperone Mario:

Sale el sol por la mañana, sí (The sun comes out in the morning, yes)

Por la mañana sale el sol (The sun comes out in the morning)

Sale el sol por la mañana, sí (The sun comes out in the morning, yes)

Y por la noche salgo yo (And I go out at night)

Y mis amigos! (And my friends!)

Clearly we were on the right bus.  I was also pleased when everyone sang “Mr. Brightside” as per my suggestion.  Our hungover compañeros probably didn’t appreciate our lovely music, but it sure was fun.  A great end to a fantastic trip.  I hope to go back to Bilbao someday and maybe pick up some more Euskera, a language that will clearly be useful to me in life. Zxxzxzzz!

Oh, and here's a little gem I found there:

It's an English-language school called "Don't."  I think they should rethink their name/marketing strategy.

Chesscafe, Where They Do American Food Better Than America.

I'm sorry I haven't blogged in a while.  I'm currently working on my blog about Bilbao and going through my hundreds of pictures, but here's something to read for now:

Today Rachel and I ate at Chesscafe for the fourth time.  Chesscafe is this restaurant about 2 blocks from our apartment, and it specializes in American-style food.  The menu includes items named after both the Spice Girls and Mel “Miel” Gibson (just those two, not sure why) and the walls are covered with pictures of Friends, as in, the show.  There’s even a whole mural of Friends on one wall.  It’s decorated in bright colors and the red awning outside boasts “The Best Orange-Juice In Madrid.” Usually I’d be skeptical about American food in Spain, but this place knows what’s up.  The first time we went, we just got smoothies, which were delicious.  The second time, we ordered cheeseburgers.  Omigod.  The burger I ordered had bacon, cheese, sautéed onions, lettuce, tomato, and a fried egg.  Essentially a heart attack on a bun but it was SO good.  We initially went there for pancakes, which we saw on the menu, but they told us they only served them in the morning. 

**EDIT** The thing about only being able to get pancakes in the morning was UNA MENTIRA.  I don't know why the guy told us that.  Renato, our favorite server, was aghast that we were told that and thought it was ridiculous.  I have since ordered pancakes at night.

Naturally, we told all our American friends about the pancakes and a couple girls met us there for breakfast one Sunday morning before we went to El Rastro, the big market which is also nearby.  For a mere 5 euros I received an enormous glass of orange juice, a cup of coffee, two pancakes, a small fruit salad of apple and kiwi, a cup of Nutella for the pancakes, and a cup of whipped cream topped with a single mini Oreo.  This warmed my little American heart.  It was good too.

Tonight, our fourth visit, we had dessert.  I ordered an Oreo milkshake and Rachel ordered something called a “Mr. Cookie.”  The milkshake I received was huge, topped with a mountain of whipped cream, six mini Oreos, and two sticks of pocky.  It also came with 2 straws.  This makes a lot of sense to me, considering the size.  It tasted as beautiful as it looked, rich with Oreo goodness.  But it was so big I had to ask for a to-go cup.  I really wish I’d had my camera with me to take a picture, but I’m sure I’ll be ordering it in the future. Rachel destroyed her Mr. Cookie, which consisted of vanilla ice cream between two huge chocolate chip cookies, covered in dark chocolate.  I had two bites and couldn’t eat any more of it.

As we sat there we compiled a list of reasons why Chesscafe is awesome:

1.    They have pancakes.

2.    Menu items named after the Spice Girls and Mel Gibson, for no apparent reason

3.    Posters of Friends all over the walls

4.    Great music (tonight they were playing Depeche Mode and some more 80s stuff)

5.    Really nice servers, all from Latin America (Spain needs to change its attitude towards immigrants)

6.    Amazing burgers and ice cream dishes

7.    Really close to our place

8.    The names of the dishes are mostly in English, but they don’t really understand how our adjectives work so there are lots of unnecessary hyphens

9.    They seem to be really into mini Oreos

There are probably more reasons but I can’t think of them now.  When we were leaving we saw a waiter bring the very same items we ordered to another table.  Yes.  We are trendsetters.  I feel very accomplished.

I swear I’m still eating lots of Spanish food.  I’m practically made of tortilla at this point.  But this place is just so delicious, I can’t resist sometimes.

Sunshine and Sangria in Sevilla

¡Hola a todos! Sorry for the pause in blogging… Google detected “unusual activity” on my account, which I assume was me sending an email from a Spanish IP address, and so shut my account down, including my blog.  But it’s all better now.  Which is good, because in addition to the homework I have from today, the first day of class, I need to blog about my fantastic weekend in Sevilla.

Last weekend was the first weekend I was able to travel anywhere.  It’s been really cold here in Madrid (well, colder than I’d like, but much warmer than it is currently in Chicago) so Abby and I wanted to go somewhere warmer, but somewhere that was also inexpensive to get to.  We settled on the city of Sevilla, in the southern region of Spain.  We took the bus because the train is SUPER expensive.  It was a bit frustrating buying tickets for the bus but it worked out okay.  The bus ride itself was actually pretty enjoyable, despite being six hours long.  The seats were comfortable and the views of the Spanish countryside were breathtaking, from patchwork fields to rocky Middle Earth-esque mountains (the Sierra Morena, I believe). 

Modern windmills of La Mancha

Toro billboard

Sierra

We arrived in Sevilla around 4pm and headed straight to our hostel, the Samay Sevilla.  I had never stayed in a hostel before so I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect, but now I’m afraid the Samay has spoiled me.  The inside was bright and welcoming, and the woman at the desk was very helpful and, happily, spoke English.  There was a lounge where we could use the internet for free and a kitchen and terrace on the top floor.  Our room was in the building next to the hostel.  It had two sets of bunk beds and a mural on the wall depicting the Sevilla skyline.  There was already a girl in the room: Beth, from England, who was spending a month in Sevilla to improve her Spanish before she headed to work in Peru for six months.

After securing our valuables in our safe in the room (much appreciated. The door to the room locked as well), Abby and I decided to check out the terrace and free tea in the kitchen.  There we met Hayley, a girl from Australia.  She seemed nice and I invited her to join us the following day in exploring the Alcázar.  She said she would be “keen” to do so (in fact, she used this expression a lot, so lovely and Aussie) and we arranged to meet in the lobby the next morning.  Abby and I went to check out the terrace of the hostel.  It was nice and big, with tables and chairs for lounging and a beautiful view.  We could even see the tops of the cathedral and the Giralda Tower. 

The terrace

The view

That night, after getting slightly lost in the narrow and winding streets of the city, we met up with Katherine, my friend from high school who is studying in Sevilla this semester, at the Giralda Tower.  We got a bit lost on the way, but eventually we turned the corner and BAM:

We wandered around a bit until we found a little restaurant where we had tasty tapas and sangria (more would follow throughout the weekend).  We chatted about our study abroad experiences thus far.  Katherine’s purse had been snatched a few days earlier; her clutch which contained her money, her phone, and a video camera, was grabbed right out of her hand.  Luckily that hasn’t happened to me yet, but I’ll be sure to stick to my over-the-shoulder purse, which I always try to have a firm grasp on.

For postre (dessert) we found a pastelería (pastry shop), and we all bought chocolate-covered palmeras.  It took me about 10 seconds to inhale mine. SO GOOD.  The pastries were arranged so prettily I asked the women working there if it was ok for me to take a picture of the goodies.  They evidently thought I wanted to take a picture of them, so I did both!

Abby

Katherine

Delicious palmera, shortly before its demise

Afterwards we walked around the city, looked inside the University of Sevilla (beautiful!), and went to the Plaza de Espana, which was closing.  It's spectacular at night.

Me and Katherine in Plaza de Espana

You may have seen this place in movies such as Lawrence of Arabia and Star Wars (it was the palace of Naboo)

We had planned to go out later with Katherine, but once we went back to our hostel to change, we realized that we were far too tired to leave again and called it a night.  Besides, we had to get up at a decent time the next day to ensure maximum exploring time.  By then an Australian woman in her late 20s or early 30s had taken the last remaining bed (in fact, we met many Australians in Sevilla).  The next morning we showered in the bathroom shared by the floor, which had 2 showers, 2 sinks, one toilet, one mosquito (which I failed to defeat), and freezing cold floors. 

We met Hayley in the lobby at 11, along with Rose, her roommate in the hostel who was from San Francisco.  We headed over to the beautiful Alcázar, which is right next to the cathedral and Giralda Tower.  The Alcázar is a beautiful blend of Christian and Moorish architecture.  The rooms are beautiful and the gardens are beyond compare.  I could describe it but I’ll just show you some pictures as they’ll do a much better job.  TIP: If you have your student ID with you, you can get in free.  I did not have mine.  Abby did.  Gah.

Amazing tapestries

Lucky ducks get to live in a castle for free.

I swear I was not in Florida.

Underground pool

We went for some sangria after we left the Alcázar, and then we found a great place for tapas.  It was super crowded but somehow we made it up to the bar.  Almost everything on the menu was 2 euro or under.  Abby and I had tortilla and chicken, and Rose had calamares.  This place, called Bodega, had such a great atmosphere.  It was busy, the waiters were shouting out orders and scrawling the tabs in chalk on the bar.  I didn’t realize it right away, but this place was featured in the Sevilla episode of Passport to Europe (yaaay!).  We chatted with a visiting Spaniard from Galicia, Manu, and then headed back to the hostel where we departed for a walking tour of the city.  It was free (though the guide asked for tips at the end) and it took us all over the city: around the cathedral, through the Barrio Santa Cruz (the Jewish quarter ironically named “Holy Cross”), to the Plaza de España, and through parks created for the Exhibition.

Abby and our new friends from the hostel, Rose and Hayley

Inside Bodega

How on earth did we make it up to the bar right away?

Tile marking where a woman's head hung for 150 years.  Moral of the story: Don't betray your people.

That night we went to see a free Flamenco show at a nearby bar.  When we walked in it was super crowded.  We ordered some jarras de sangría and found a table to set the drinks on (it was so crowded we couldn’t all sit).  The flamenco began at 11 and consisted, at first, of three people: a dancer, a singer/clapper, and a guitarist.  Despite her amazing skills, I found it difficult to focus on the dancer because the guitarist was one of the most beautiful men I have ever seen.  Everyone on the stage was quite talented, actually.  During the flamenco performers’ break, Rose convinced me to ask for a picture with the guitarist.  After the flamenco-ers (flamenquers? I don’t know) came back on stage, two other people joined them: a man who sang and clapped, and a woman, not dressed for flamenco but who obviously had the moves.  It was truly a unique and very Spanish experience.

He was sooo attractive.

Most of us were tired and had to travel the next day, so after stopping at the only open tapas bar we could find, we retired to the hostel.  So far I am failing at the Spanish custom of partying until 6am; I need sleep!  The following day we planned to go up the Giralda Tower and do some shopping before our bus left.  To our dismay, we found that the cathedral and the tower didn’t open until 2:30 on Sundays, which was the time we had to leave for the bus station! So disappointing.  We did a little shopping instead, and I bought some postcards and a print of the Plaza de España to hang on my wall next semester.  I resisted more shopping because I know that I will be back before I go back to Chicago. 

I absolutely loved Sevilla.  In fact, while walking around the city that weekend I stated over and over how much I loved it.  It was the perfect first weekend of traveling and I was sad to go back to the reality of classes in Madrid.  However, I know there are many more weekend adventures to come!

Plaza de Espana