Update!

Aaaaand somehow it's been almost a month since I last posted...oops. Well, since then - there was a week between Barcelona and spring break - kinda uneventful, but I did cook dinner for my host family(I of course made pasta sauce)! And then the Spring Break adventure began! I spent the week in London and Paris, yea I live a blessed life :)

I've posted about 200 photos on facebook (out of 600 so I did a good job not going overboard) so you've probably seen most of the highlights of my trip in photo form, but...

In London my favorite things were definitely seeing the London Eye and Big Ben at night and touring Shakespeare's Globe Theater. The theater actually has a whole museum attached which is filled with some pretty cool stuff. It was also nice to take a day trip out of town to Windsor, Oxford, and Stonehenge, but seeing as it was -10 degrees that day, I was a bit more thankful for the time I got to spend indoors x)

Katie, Lorna and I at the Lourve

In Paris, I have a new second favorite city (second only to DC) because even though it was cold there too, the city was gorgeous. My friends and I went a bit crazy on our first day and did almost every main tourist attraction there is (which made my feet hurt, but was wonderful) and meant there was time for us to take our time the rest of the week and leisurely see some other things... and go back to the Eiffel Tower every day. The highlight was seeing the Eiffel Tower sparkle at night (it sparkles for 5 minutes on the hour after dark).

This week has had some late nights as I decided to take Spring Break completely off and leave my homework for this week... but it was worth it :)  Also on the wonderful side, I also got a surprise from Grammie and Grandpa in the form of Easter Chocolate in the mail!!!! We had a paseo class to a flamenco show - and when I told my host mother about it she wanted to show me her old dresses and dressed me up in one (see pic). And tomorrow we have a day trip to Burgos to see plants and buckets of liquid. (Actually we get to see an orchard for grapes and olives and see them making wine and olive oil :)

A Typical Week

Sunday: Get home from Barcelona and sleeeeep

Monday: Internship! Lots of time promoting the conference cycle about education and memory - starting this week with "The Right to Education in Danger: Aggression Towards the Social Right of Citizenship". Afterwards, studying for my EU midterm.

Tuesday: EU midterm in the morning, break for lunch 2-3, History and Culture class in the afternoon (we're starting to learn the history of the Borbon kings). Group meeting with AU Abroad visitor and tapas with everyone for dinner!

Wednesday: Internship again - started using Tweetdeck to manage Twitter better and line up tweets to send when I'm not at the office. Uploaded pictures from Barcelona, started my final paper for my internship credits, found out I was officially accepted to study in Italy this summer!!! and skyped with the family :)

Conference at Ateneo de Madrid

Thursday: Lit and Film class about the Vanguardia (Avant-garde) literature movement at the beginning of the 20th century. We also got our midterms back (A-!!) After class, quick lunch and then headed downtown to Ateneo de Madrid (think tank) to listen to presentations about democracy and citizenship for the internship. Later, dinner out with some friends!

Friday: Paseo class - we were supposed to go to El Capricho Park (18th century historical park) but we got there and it was closed (now only open saturdays and sundays for a fee due to the economic crisis). But to make it up to us, our professor took us to Retiro Park and we got to go out on the row boats! After, I had a picnic in the park, read some of my book for Lit class, and may have even fallen asleep in the sun. Even better - when I got home we had paella for dinner!

Row Boats at Retiro

Saturday: Slept in :) Wrote my Barcelona blog post, got all ready to go to El Capricho Park, and then realized it's raining outside. Decided to work on reading my lit book and finishing my internship paper, so of course I found time to write this instead x)

Barcelona

Last weekend my program went to Barcelona! And yes, it has taken me a whole week to get to writing this - but in my defense I had a midterm and work and sleep to do. Anyway, Barcelona was absolutely amazing and the warm weather was wonderful.

Inside the Sagrada Familia

When we first arrived, we took a quick bus tour through the city and drove up Montjuic (it means Jewish Mountain because that's where the Jewish population had to live when the catholic kings decided they weren't cool with other religions being around) and had a great view looking out over the city and the harbor. We then went to the Sagrada Familia, which is the cathedral designed and built mostly by Gaudi. My professor joked that most Spaniards think Gaudi was on acid - and then explained to us that he wasn't joking. Either way, I think this was the first cathedral we've visited where we didn't want to leave after five minutes - this place is amazing. The outside was really interesting, but my favorite part was the rainbow stained glass inside.
After touring the cathedral, a few of my friends and I got a pizza for lunch and had a picnic in front of the Sagrada Familia and our group headed over to Park Güell - which is a whole park designed by Gaudi. An amusing point about our first day is that we saw two great places by Gaudi - which are also considered his biggest failures. He never finished the Sagrada Familia (they're still working on it) and Park Güell was originally intended to be a housing project designed by Gaudi for the aristocracy, but he only ended up building 2 houses because no one wanted to live so far away from the social center of the city.

Dali Museum

Mediterranean!

The next day we got on the bus to go to the Dali museum, which is outside of Barcelona. The museum doesn't actually have a lot of Dali's masterpieces because they're in bigger museums (like the Prado in Madrid) but it was still a really cool place. Dali himself bought the old theater and converted it into a museum for his works. Afterwards, we drove to the beach :) although it was too cold to go swimming I did touch the Mediterranean for the first time and found some pretty awesome sea glass. Back in Barcelona, I went with some friends to see the fountains in front of the palace which light up and are set to music before going to dinner at Las Ramblas (the main road that leads from downtown Barcelona to the harbor) with the whole group.

Our last day in Barcelona, we went to the gothic area of the city to walk around, saw the old gothic cathedral, and got to hear the band that plays on the steps to the cathedral on Sundays and see people dancing the Sardana. Our professor then told us to put our bags in a pile in the center and join hands because we were going to learn the dance too :) We ended the trip by going to the Picasso museum getting lunch near las ramblas, and walking down near the harbor before heading to the airport.

Fountains <3

Midterms

meh.

El escorial

Last Friday for our "paseo" class (part of my History and Culture Seminar is that we go on short trips around Madrid and get lectured on Fridays while we see the stuff we get to learn about - they're called paseos, which translates to "walks") we went to El escorial which is an old royal palace and monastery located about an hour train ride north of Madrid. Our professor warned us that it would be really cold, so of course, it was actually pretty nice out when we went - the weather channels, websites, and people are always wrong about the weather here x)

Library at El escorial

The escorial was pretty from the outside, and creepy on the inside, complete with multiple rooms underground where a bunch of dead kings and members of the royal families have their tombs... a bit creepier are the two tombs that are empty and waiting in their special spots for the next two royals to die. Anyway, besides that we also got to see the library of the escorial, which, when it was built was the most important library in Europe, and is still a very important library today - a very cool place located in one of the escorial's towers with a beautiful ceiling, books leafed in gold, and lots of old maps and globes.

Soccer/Fútbol

I've never really been a big soccer fan and that hasn't really changed even though I'm in a place obsessed with it, but last night a group of my friends and I went to watch one of the biggest games in Spain - Real Madrid v. Barcelona - and it was actually a great time. It was a little different watching sports without either my clarinet or a couch, but everyone's excitement and chanting created a pretty good atmosphere. We decided to go to an Irish place because the commentary would be broadcast in English and also because we had a few Barcelona fans and a few Madrid fans in our group and this way we weren't at a place filled entirely with fans of just one team.
My program offers a class called "Soccer Obsession" which I went to for the first two weeks I was here - unfortunately it's only for business majors and is only taught in English, which means I can't take it, and then I got my internship so I have less time as well - but I think it's really cool that you could have an entire class on the business that is soccer. It's definitely much more than just a game here :)

My new background on my computer   :)

Family

Normally airline strikes are unfortunate events for all those involved and affected, but for me it worked out great because my family got to come to visit me a day early :D Although it was a more than a bit stressful for my mom (and Julia didn't have time to decorate her nails) it was an interesting start to a wonderful yet cold week.

Mom, Dad, and Julia got to see all of the important tourist destinations in Madrid: the Prado, Gran Via, Mercado San Miguel, try black paella in Chueca and chocolate and churros in a few places, Plaza del Sol, Plaza Mayor, the Royal Palace, Plaza de España, lots of old churches, the Sorolla museum, Principe Pio, Retiro Park, and everywhere we walked through too!

In front of the Royal Palace

Trying Black Paella

We also took a day trip to Toledo on Wednesday which was gorgeous and had a tour of the cathedral and got some amazing views.

In Toledo

On Thursday night we were invited to dinner at my host family's apartment so Mom, Dad, and Julia got to meet my family, see where I'm staying, and have a really nice meal.

I believe Mom has a quite successful list of about 10 birds she saw (maybe more), Julia took pictures of them and us for her, and Dad has now added the words for 'cookie' (galleta) and 'beer' (cerveza) to his vocabulary of 'tacos' so it was a very successful week ;)

Segovia

Last Friday we took a day trip to Segovia, a city about an hour NW of Madrid. There we got to see the aquaduct that's still intact from Roman times, which is pretty cool especially because they didn't use any mortar and the aquaduct is a few stories high. We also saw the cathedral, of course, which was nice but like all the other ones in every city we've visited, much too cold. This cathedral was more of a mix between gothic style and renaissance style (which means it had lots of spires and detailed carvings but also had a dome) and left me thinking that I might like the renaissance style architecture a bit more. And our last stop of the day was at Alcazar - an old castle with moat and peacocks and all. Walking through the Alcazar was definitely my favorite part of the day - they had some of the original furniture and paintings (on the ceilings and on the walls) and we got to climb up to one of the towers and look out from the top.

Gothic/Renaissance-style Cathedral of Segovia

Aquaduct

Another highlight from last weekend is that I found out one of my friends lives 11 minutes walking from my house :)  (We didn't know there was a way to cross over the highway)

A bit of catching up

A bit of catching up

I've been in Spain for over a month now and done a ton. I'm not going to try to write a post for everything so far because that would just be crazy and my pictures on Facebook have kept people a bit updated on what's been happening. But just for some highlights of the first month...

Orientation:

After a flight from Boston to Toronto to Frankfurt to Madrid, a bed was all I wanted and exactly what I got :) Arrival day we were picked up from the airport and had sleeping time in our hotel until dinner when we got to meet the other students on the program. We had a day of orientation, then got our home stay placements and spent the first week going to orientation at American University's building here in Madrid. AU has 4 programs in Madrid so there are 34 of us total. I only knew one other student coming into the program because nearly everyone is a junior, but I've made some great friends. Pic = me with friends from my program.

Toledo:

At the end of orientation week, we took a group day trip to the city of Toledo (about an hour southwest of Madrid). Most gorgeous city ever. The background picture for this blog is actually a pic I took of Toledo. While there we saw the mosque, synagogue, cathedral, El Greco’s famous painting “The Burial of the Count of Orgaz”, a monastery, and some really great views of the city.

Classes Begin:

For the first few weeks I went to almost all of the classes (that are in Spanish) that are offered because if you know me, you know I’m cool like that. AU caps us at 17 credits a semester and my internship counts for credit, so I can’t take all of them, but besides the ones I’m enrolled in (Spain and the European Union, Spain Seminar: History and Culture, Spanish Literature and Film) I really like the “Security Issues in the Basque Country” – about the ETA terrorist group and nationalism in general in Spain – and wish I was a business student and didn’t need to take all my classes in Spanish to take the “Spain’s Soccer Obsession” course – the title kinda explains what that one’s about. Four hour classes are something to get used to, but luckily there’s a coffee machine downstairs and we get a small break halfway through.

Ávila and Salamanca:

Our first group overnight trip! The program I’m enrolled in here is called “Spain: The Iberian Experience” and my seminar class counts as two classes, so as a group we do some trips around the Iberian Peninsula where we learn about the place before and during our visit. We spent a weekend visiting Ávila and Salamanca (both northwest of Madrid). On Saturday we drove to Ávila and did a quick walking tour of the city. Ávila is the only city left in Spain with it's original wall still intact all the way around. While there we got to see St. Teresa's monastery, the cathedral, and we climbed a portion of the wall. Saturday evening we drove to Salamanca and, as it's a college town, enjoyed the busy night life. Sunday we got to see the main plaza, cathedral, and the old university (Salamanca is home to one of the 4 oldest and well-respected universities in Europe) and then enjoyed the nap time that was the bus ride back to Madrid.

Internship:

As part of my program I have the option of having an internship for credit instead of another class so after about 2 weeks, it was off to an interview I went. I got an internship with Fundación Cives where I work on Mondays and Wednesdays and go to conferences when there are ones to go to. My first day was amazing - I got to translate a memorandum to the European Council from Spanish to English that Cives was sending to ask the Council to denounce the new Spanish government's (The Popular Party won the last election) educational reform (which removes Citizenship courses and promotes more religious education). Since then, I've worked on creating a new Facebook page for them, a new logo, updated Twitter, translated more stuff, and I'm working on learning the coding for creating a new wikipedia page. I also went to my first conference at a think tank downtown which was a panel talking about religion in public schools.

Southern Spain (Andalucía):

Our second overnight trip was an extended weekend to the cities of Córdoba, Granada, and Sevilla. In Córdoba we visited the Mosque/Cathedral, which is really cool because it's a mosque built on top of the roman center of the city with a Cathedral built in the middle of the mosque by the catholics when they took over. In Granada we visited the Alhambra - the old palaces of the Moorish Kings who ruled Granada for a long time before the Catholic Kings (Isabella and Fernando) took over, the cathedral, a chapel, and went to see a Flamenco show done by a family of gypsies a little outside the city. Our last day was in Sevilla and the weather was beautiful. There, we visited the bull fighting ring and museum, the cathedral, and my friends and I tried bull meat tapas for lunch. We walked by one of the main plazas, which was gorgeous, and then headed back to Madrid. Pics = Granda mosque/cathedral and me and Leah in the bull fighting ring.

Getting Started

Getting Started

Yesterday and today have been absolutely gorgeous here in Madrid, and with the arrival of the sun, I’ve decided to wake up a bit and start a blog.

So as I type this I’m listening to some wonderful Spanish opera music – not my favorite, but no longer really annoying – as my host mother has quite the taste for opera or the top forty radio station; an interesting combination.

My host family here is pretty cool. I have a host mother (Immaculada) and a host sister (Almudena) who’s 24 and works full time so I see her every once and a while. My host mother has two other sons who are older and live with their own families – one of whom I’ve met and has baby who turns my host mother into a coo-ing machine. We live in an apartment like most people in Madrid do, which is quite nice and where I have my own room and bathroom. If you guys want to google-map the building you can type in: C/ Antonio Robles 4 - 2º C – 28034, Madrid. The building is right next to Hospital Ramon y Cajal.

Now that I’ve been here a while I have somewhat of a regular weekly routine down. Mondays and Wednesdays I work at my internship at Fundación Cives (an NGO that promotes citizenship and education); Tuesdays I have class “Spain and the European Union” 10-2 and “Spain Seminar: History and Culture” from 3-7; Thursdays I have my favorite class “Spanish Literature and Film” from 10-2; and Fridays I have the other session of “Spain Seminar: History and Culture” which is normally a “paseo” class – meaning we get lectured as we walk around parts of the city or visit a museum.

Some of the highlights of the paseos have been the Sorolla Museum (painter Sorolla’s house turned museum with a lot of his works - an example below) and the Egyptian Temple donated to the city of Madrid.