Morocco

Morocco was amazing. A totally different culture and religion. Maren and I took an overnight bus on Wednesday, to arrive in the port city of Algeciras, Spain on Thursday morning. We met up with our exchange group and headed off to Tangiers, Morocco via ferry. We arrived after about an hour and a half and headed through a market to talk with people at a women's center. Here we first experienced Moroccan tea, a green tea served with mint and lots of sugar. We then headed off for lunch in a smaller town, but before we arrived we pulled off the road to ride camels. Then to the capital, Rabat, to meet our host families. I stayed with the two other guys on the trip with a family that had the most amazing house... I mean big with an open courtyard and everything. Our "room" was like a palace. I say "room" because Moroccans don't have the bedroom concept... instead they just put low benches around the walls of all the rooms and then when you get tired you just find an empty bench. The culture is very group orientated, with most meals served with everyone eating out of one large dish. It was very different. The next day we toured Rabat. First we viewed an ancient cemetery. There are old ruins and gardens, and even a pond of eels. Rumors says that if you want to get pregnant you throw boiled eggs into the eels. Also at this place of life and death, there were tons of storks. Kind of surreal. Then we went for lunch with the families and following that a walk through the town with Moroccan students. They were very nice and answered all of our questions. One more dinner, and a talk with peacecorps people later, and it was time for bed. The next day found us in the Rif Mountains. We visited a village and took a short, muddy hike. We then went to a small town that used to be part of Spain... yes Spain is greedy and has/had parts of itself in Africa. It is a city that is almost entirely blue because it is where many of the Jews settled when expelled from Spain in 1492. The city is still blue and quite peaceful. We settled into the hostel and then went out to spend money (we had already exchanged it and didn't want to have to change it back.) Well lets just say that this place was cheap. For example a bowl of soup, a cheese omelet and three glasses of Moroccan tea will set you back about 37 Dirham or less than 4 dollars. We spent the night and then traveled back to Spain the next day, first Spain in Africa, and then the real Spain. Maren and I took another 8.5 hour bus trek and arrived back in Madrid at about 1:15 Monday morning.


View of Rabat


Market in Rabat


Clint and Maren in the Rif Mountains


Rock of Gibraltar from the ferry


Maren and Fatima the camel


View of the coast


The blue city


Clint and his bread

The Lost Posts – Palma

Palma de Mallorca was an amazing weekend. Maren and I, along with some friends from her program, stayed in a small town outside of Palma, the main city on the island of Mallorca. This town, Arenal, was basically little Berlin. That’s what the guidebook called it. Arenal reminded Maren and I of Cozumel, from its slightly run downness in the local’s part of town, to the glitzy tourism sector right next to it. Most of the toursim was aimed at the Germans though, so I have no idea what hey were saying. Germans vacation/move to this set of islands for the cheap cost of living and the weather. People kept thinking we were German, and all they got from us was confused looks. We stayed in a very nice hostel ran by a British man that was about a block from the beach. It was wonderful. Our weekend consisted of lying on the beach, eating cheap food, and drinking a bit… and not speaking Spanish. The beaches were amazing coves and the weather, in October, was nice enough to lie on the beach from about 11 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon. Wonderful weekend, and I’m going back at Christmas! Well not to the beaches, but to the mountains…

Things I heart about Madrid
aka Cosas que amo sobre Madrid

1. Calle de Hilarión Eslava: This is my new street that I walk down to go to school. It is much nicer to walk through a neighborhood than next to a bust street. Plus this street is full of interesting shops, including a surf shop???, a huge grocery store, and also a store that sells clothing reminescent of horse riders. Plust there is a Mexican food restaurant and two night clubs. Fun times.

2. Coffee: The coffee here is amazing. Even Starbucks is delicious... and I hate to admit that is where I am often found hanging out due to its prominance as the only cafe in the city where you can´t smoke. But in general the coffee is great, and strong. And you will be hard pressed to find regular coffee... you will be drinking espresso in one of its various forms. There is café con leche, which is espresso with steamed milk, and this is drank by true Spaniards only in the morning. It is like a slightly stronger latte. Then there is the cortado. This is basically a shot of espresso with a raindrop of milk in it. This is what the Spaniards drink the rest of the day. If you are feeling particulary gutsy, you can have the straight espresso shot, but I havent gotten to that point.

3. Short people: This one may seem a little bit odd, but since it has been raining for the past 5 months (ok like 5 days... it gets old fast)this is pertinent. When it rains even a tiny bit, the Spaniards whip out their umbrellas. These things are permanently attached to their hands. It is a challenge to walk about Madrid normally, but when it rains, the sidewalks are slick in places, and you have to dodge the umbrellas. This has proved almost deadly for Maren, as she is the perfect height to be blinded my the pokey ends of the umbrellas when they are opened. I luckily am way above the short people´s umbrellas.

more to come...

Cuenca

A while ago, aka the day before the night my computer got stolen, I traveled with my friend Kali to Cuenca. Cuenca is a small-ish town in the eastern part of Spain. It is the halfway point between Madrid and Valencia, the closest city with a beach. Cuenca is known for its casa colgadas, or hanging houses. I thought these would be amazing feat of engineering, with large parts of the houses dangling precariously off the edge of a huge cliff. Well the was a huge cliff, but not much dangling.

My friend and I left Saturday morning to take the 2 and a half hour train ride to Cuenca, arriving at about 11. This was my first train ride ever, and it was quite uneventful. We arrived in Cuenca, and not having a guidebook, started to wonder. We saw signs for the hanging houses, and headed that way. They were rather unimpressive, but the art museum inside one of them was amazing. We wondered about the town, finding more museums and visiting the cathedral. For lunch we sat on an outlook of the mountains and had bocadillos and wine. It was very fun. And the people were NICE!

And now the pictures:

ROBBED!!!

So last Saturday Night, after an amazing trip to Cuenca (a small Spainish town East of Madrid... another post), I was robbed. I was sitting outside my apartment building using the WIFI when a man ran up to me, grabbed my computer, and took off. I ran after him but couldn´t catch up. I don´t really know why I ran after him, because I have no clue what I would have done if I would have caught him. I wasn´t hurt, and yes. I can now say that I have visited a Spanish police station and have gotten a police report. Everything is fine, and I will be getting another computer hopefully soon, but the beautiful posts with amazing pictures will be lacking until I get another computer.

La noche en blanco

This past weekend’s exploits didn’t involve a jaunt about my adopted country, but rather remaining right here in Madrid, if not only to explore my city, but also for a special celebration. To say “Paseo una noche en blanco” literally means to spend a white night, but is a colloquialism for staying out all night. It is thus fitting that this night-long festival (9:30 Saturday night until 7 Sunday morning) be called “La noche en blanco.” This was a celebration of arts, music and culture throughout the streets, buildings, and plazas of Madrid. The varied activities were spread all about town, with the intent that people take time to enjouy the arts and also their city while walking between events. The many espectáculos, or events, ranged from chocolate tasting at a museum dedicated to clothing, to a band debuting their newest cd in front of an ancient Egyptian temple that is situated in a magnificent park, to watching the stars at a planetarium while listening to jazz. Needless to say the night was unique.
My night started off with a visit to la Casa Encendida, an art museum, that had many strange pieces of art (huge installations), but was also projecting a video in their courtyard that combined multimedia art with the songs of Björk. The next stop was a local cervecería for a caña, a small beer, before going to the circus. The circus was amazing, and jammed full of people in a intimate space. The act that my friends and I saw was a lady who twirled about like a spider monkey on two pieces of red fabric that hung from the ceiling.
We met up with more people, and headed over to the botanical gardens for a poetry reading. The line was too long so we abandoned this event, and proceeded to walk through the streets. This is an event in itself, looking at all the bars and clubs (Madrid has more bars per capita than anywhere else in the world… the local bar is part of their culture). Eventually the group decided to go get churros y chocolate, a late night snack typical of Madrid. This involves churros, deep-fried pieces of dough, being dipped in a mug of really thick hot chocolate. It is spectacular. We arrived at the chocolatería at about 3 in the morning and there was already a twenty-minute wait. We waited and ate, and then were back off into the night. We headed to Sol, a large plaza, where we took some pictures, and lost some members of the group to sleep.
The Palacio Real next called our names, so we headed to there. This is the royal palace of Spain. We sat in the plaza next to the palace for a long while, and posed for pictures with the statues of former Spanish kings.
The final event of our evening was located at Parque del Retiro, a huge park like Central Park in NYC. There were at least 8 different bands playing different types of music in the park, starting at 6:15 a.m.
We saw a Spanish band, heard a band that was heavy on the accordion, and saw an orchestra. It is very fun to watch drunken men dance wildly to live music in the park as the sun comes up. I called it a full night, and returned home at about 8:30 a.m.

Asturias, Patria querida,
Asturias de mis amores;

Those are the first two lines of the anthem of Asturias, a province in northern Spain. Asturias, my country. Asturias of my loves. This is just a piece of the chant commonly heard late at night, when the citizens, a bit intoxicated, are in the streets. This past weekend I traveled to Austrias, and it was the grand place mentioned by the anthem.




Asturias is 6-7 hours from Madrid by bus, but we made a stop in León, in the province of Castille y León. Here we toured "the greatest gothic cathedral in all of Spain," as the tour guide mentioned multiple times.
The church stood in the main square, not unusual for such an old city, but what was different was the church was a little intimidating. I don't know if it was the combination of the gothic architecture along with the stormy sky, but something said this was not just another church of Europe. Inside the mood was different, with the many stained glass windows letting in tinted light, a sign of the divine according to our guide.
The church was wonderful, but we had many other things to do.


After León we proceeded to a small mountain town in Picos de Europa, a national park in a chain of mountains.
We checked in to the three hotels in the town, and proceeded to occupy the time between check-in and dinner by doing as the locals would do, going to the bar. Asturias is known for its sidra, an alcholic apple cider that must be poured from a great height into a communal cup that is passed around between friends. We found a small bar, complete with a boar's head mounted above the sidra pouring apparatus.
We quickly got to the task of trying the local speacialty. After a while the locals got tired of all the Americans or something, and they left. I am just going to say they needed a nap. I guess we got a bit roudy, and needless to say, we didn't get any wine with our dinner. The next morning we went on a hike through the mountains to a small, traditional village with pretty flowers.
The mountains were amazing.

We took a perilous taxi ride back to where we started and we off to Llanes.



Llanes is a touristy seaside town on the northern coast of Spain.
It looks like California, with ocean on one side, and mountains on the other. We took a tour of town, including a walk along the paseo, a grassy promenade on a cliff overlooking the ocean and town.
Later that night we attended a potato festival, which involved a live band playing in a plaza, sidra, and a potato dance. The next morning we boarded the bus and headed home.


It was a great weekend trip, and in sharp contrast with the classes which I have started. If you think classes are boring in English, try taking a bad one in Spanish.

Its funny how you crave your language. I automatically identify with anyone in Madrid that speaks English. It doesn't matter if you speak good English, broken English, or heavily accented English as long as you speak English, I don't discriminate. This common tongue sparks an immediate kinship of some sort. This is especially true when riding the metro (subway) through the city. I am a foreigner amongst a mass of Spanish speakers, and when the rare English speaker comes along, like a floating log in the wayward sea of Spanish, I latch on, listening ever so sly to the conversation, hinging on every detail. This may be a sick obsession, but woe is me...

Last Friday I traveled to Segovia, a very old city north of Madrid. There are many sights including a castle, rumored to be Walt Disney's inspiration for Sleeping Beauty's castle.
We toured the castle, but having an hour tour in Spanish gets a bit tiring so I gave up on the historical aspects. I made my own narrative and it was much more fun. The castle had tons of beautiful stained glass windows, and lots of weapons.




Also of interest in Segovia is a church built long ago by the Knights Templar, of recent Da Vinci code fame.
I found this a bit boring, and I feel that I have seen almost all of the old churches that I need to see. But saying that, I did see the outside of a beautiful cathedral.
The best sight in Segovia is the aquaduct.
This structure is over 2000 years old and was built by the Romans. No cement or mortar was used in its construction, just great engineering. Amazing, just amazing. There is one more thing for the parents... a picture of my roomate and I in Segovia.

A lot has happened in the 6 days following the last post. Maren and I arrived in Madrid on Saturday and made our way to our hostal. We spent Sunday strolling through and picnicking in the Parque del Retiro (it is like Central Park in NYC) and visiting a Picasso exhibit at the Prado. Oh a hard life it is! The park is beautiful, with tons of flowers and shady paths para dar un paseo (to take a walk).




On Monday Maren left for her orientation and I walked about the city and rested in the hostal. Tuesday marked the beginning of my orientation at the Hotel Husa Moncloa. After a treacherous subway ride to the hotel (taking 80 lbs. of luggage through the metro alone is quite a feat with the many stairs) I checked into my four star room and got ready for lunch. Lunch was in true Madrilleño style – an affair that lasted almost two hours. The appetizer was bread and olives along with vino tinto (red wine). Then we were brought out salads with tuna, and more wine. After this course we were all full and not expecting more comida (food). We were wrong, and we knew this when the waiters walked in with platters of some kind of grilled meat (there is a debate as to whether it was pork or veal), grilled mushrooms, and a Spanish version of scalloped potatoes. This was also very good but I didn’t eat it all. Then came out a pastry and custard desert (and more wine). And to top the meal of we had coffee. Later that day we also went on a bus tour of Madrid. It was very touristy, but still fun and good to get our in the air. We saw tons of old buildings, abandoned buildings, statues, arches, and fountains.








The next day, Wednesday, we had a morning of chats about various subjects and then met our Señoras and went home for lunch. My señora is very nice and my roommate and I live close enough to the school that we can walk there in about 20 minutes. I have a roommate who goes to KU. Later that afternoon we had a Spanish test and then a tour of the Spanish University we are affliated with. The tour was boring so we left and just in time to duck into a bus stop before the rain really started coming down. We waited out the storm and walked back to our house. That night we went out for tapas (small things to eat with a drink) and then visited one of the local bars.

We are sitting in a deserted airport terminal in Houston. The only noise is the quiet hum of the air conditioning and Maren crunching on her oversalted popcorn. In less than a day we will be in the heart of Spain, emersed in the Spanish culture and language, away from the states and all that is familiar. Everything will be new and novel, as if I were a child again, except Spanish this time and entitled to consume mass quantities of wine. It is odd to think that I will be gone for an entire year, but this will be an excellent adventure (just like Bill and Ted).

Ciao for now, more from Madrid later...