So as many of you know (because you all follow London weather conditions), it snowed! Last Thursday I awoke to a blanket of powder covering everything. This was good, except I had to go to class that is a 20 minute walk away at another campus. And I was stupid and didn't take the bus. By the time I arrived, I was freezing because my feet were soaked. The sidewalks were slush and it was horrible. After I came home and ate lunch I took these beautiful pictures for you, the readers of my blog. You should feel loved.


The snowy stairs of Regent's canal


A view of a church


I call it a snow-bush-flower-plant


The snowy bench (it looks so inviting... but no)


travels


mind the bird...


tulips love the snow

Saturdays lend themselves for excursions into the realm of central London. This is like a far away world compared to the reality of life in the East End. Central London is the things of postcards: Big Ben, Parliament, and the London Eye. The East End is home to the many different ethnicities that make London such a diverse place. Its like they are two different cities, yet all in one. Last Saturday I traveled into central for a day hopping museums and in search of St. George's Gardens. I first ventured to the British Museum. This is a collection of artifacts from all the places that have been conquered by the British empire at some time. This includes Roman sculpture, African artwork, and Egyptian mummies. The museum is vast, and more importantly, free, so it is always packed with tourists and Londoners alike. Here are a few highlights from my visit:


Attesting to the multicultural visitors (and tourism in general), the Egyptian guide is printed in 8 languages.


A view of the inner courtyard.


The lion in the courtyard... yeah the Brits stole it from somewhere... I would guess Italy


On to the Egyptians... Some statues made of???


Mummified cats... and the sign assured that they were real.


On to stealing from Rome! And doesn't this bust look like Will Ferrell?



And this was stolen from... somewhere happy.


More in an upcoming post about St. George's Gardens...

The lost posts: Granada

In late October/ early November (I really don't remember) Maren and I traveled to Granada in the south of Spain. This is a town renowned for its Alhambra, an ancient Moorish fortress that is stunning. It is odd that Spain now exploits its Moorish past for tourism dollars, when long ago they kicked all of the Moors out of Spain because they hated them, but I digress. We took a 6 hour train to Granada, arriving late Friday night. The next day we went to the Alhambra, which took all morning. After that we shopped a bit, but really there wasn't much to do in Granada, other than the Alhambra.Sunday morning we walked around the old Jewish quarter and then caught a train back to Madrid. This is really more of a photo post, as the Alhamra was too pretty to limit myself to only 5 pictures...


Me on the train, while the Spaniards took their smoke break (yes the train stopped for a smoke break)


A Rose


Ceiling of an Arab Bath


Which is bigger, Clint or the Archway?


Coolest thing ever: Lion Head Mailbox


Maren + Granada = Smiles


The cat wanted to run away, but I gave him little choice in the matter...


Something old... like all of Granada


Beautiful ceiling - the blue specks are all that remains of the original painting


Patio of the Lions


I don't actually know what they are, but I am going to put forth the guess of old Moorish submarines


Another courtyard...


The leaves fall down, and Maren becomes artsy


The white buildings of Granada


Ruins of former houses?


Fountains in the gardens


Maren wanted the pic to herself, so she pushed me out


The Alhambra from a distance

The wind here is outrageous. Now you may be thinking, but Clint, isn't England known for its rain? The answer is yes, it rains almost everyday here, but many times that rain is a light drizzle or only last for less than an hour (at least so far). The factor that makes the rain unbearable is the wind. It seems as anytime that it is raining hard enough to warrant the use of an umbrella, the wind is blowing so hard that the rain comes in near sideways, and your umbrella is made semi-useless as it pops inside-out with frequency. That or the wind is strong enough to almost blow the thing out of your hand. I have had to grip the umbrella with both hands just to walk about. Yesterday the wind was 45 mph. I literally saw a woman get blown over. She just fell right over when the gust hit her (now this is a bit extreme, as we had a heavy storm come through Europe, but it illustrates the point.) So the moral of this story is when in London, plan to get wet.

I have been in London for a bit over two weeks, and much has happened. Above all I have moved into my flat (aka my apartment) and started classes at Queen Mary University of London. My flat is really nice. I share it with 5 other people, 2 Americans and 3 Brits. I have my own room, complete with a private bathroom. (OK, as you can see from the picture, the bathroom is a little lacking. The shower is technically just the corner of the bathroom, and I don't know why there is an actual shower curtain, because the water still goes everywhere, but its my very own crappy bathroom.) I have also been enjoying our kitchen, and being able to make my own food. My flatmates were really happy when they learned I could "properly cook." I am taking Basic Biochemistry, a Spanish literature class titled "The Boom of the Latin American Novel", a Brazilian Culture class, and a Beginning French class. So far I am really liking the British system of education. It involves me going to class about 8 hours a week for 16 hours of credit. It is a teach yourself system, which is fine for me. I have also noticed that the students here don't appear particularly happy to be in the little class they have, so maybe its a good system for them. I have also been taken by some of the quirks of British life. I find myself really enjoying tea (with milk and sugar, as a good Brit drinks) with digestives (little cookies to eat with tea that taste kinda like graham crackers - they also come in a chocolate dipped version - superb)

As for things for you readers to look forward to, I have many trips from my time in Spain to add, including my holiday-time trek through the North and stays in Barcelona and Mallorca, in addition to all the odd and interesting things that occur in London.

Until the next post, I leave you all with some pictures...

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: