Monday, July 31, 2006

Trip to Budapest

Today I rode a Hydrofoil boat from Vienna to Budapest. I really enjoyed this because it was fast (80 km/m), they announced all of the sights along the way, the seats were comfortable, and a guy walked around and served food and drinks. We stopped in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia for lunch. It is a very cool town, unlike anything I've seen on this trip.

Now I'm in Budapest, again a very incredible and different city. Tomorrow I've reserved to sightsee all day and I'm excited for that. I also bought my train ticket for Zagreb today so I'm set to go. But, only problem, my bag still hasn't come. I'll play it by ear and see what the news is in the morning.

Leaving Barcelona

As hard as it was, today I left Barcelona to travel to Vienna. But of course in true Barcelonian form, there was of course some excitement. The day before my flight was scheduled to leave, Air Iberian workers went on strike. Normally this would just affect that airline's flights, but the workers oiled up the tarmack and lit it on fire. This meant that the whole airport had to close. I did however make it to Vienna with only a small delay and long lines. My bags on the other hand didn't.

Now that I have more time and will be traveling I will attempt to update this thing some more, stay tuned.

Anyways, my night in Vienna was alright. It poured rain all night which through my sightseeing plans off, but after being in Barcelona for over a month, it was nice to feel rain for once and tempertatures that reach cooler than 30 Degrees C. Nevertheless, I was able to walk around the beautiful old town area and see the Hapsburg Palace and Stephensplatz Cathedral.

Sunday, July 30, 2006

San Sebastian


Our trip to the Basque Country...

Sunday, July 16, 2006

Mallorca


Mallorca was incredible. We got there early in the morning on Friday. We had the morning to relax and catch up on sleep and then in the afternoon we had a guided tour of the Old Town which included the Arab baths and the famous Cathedral. Then we had dinner at our hotel and we were sent off for the night with GAs from Mallorca. We had a great time and learned how expensive Mallorca is as well as how even though Ibiza gets all of the recognition for its nightlife, Mallorca can easily compete for this title as well.
The next day, as you can tell from the first photo, we went to the beach. This beach was great: very clean, all locals, water so blue it hurts your eyes and finally perfect cliffs to dive off of into the water. The water here is much different than in Barcelona so we enjoyed spending some time in it. We tried to fit in as best as possible and a few guy friends and I played a header game with a soccer ball in the water and we got increasingly better as the day grew later. We then did some cliff jumping which was fun and not as dangerous as it sounds.
The next morning it was time for us to leave, so we jumped back on the short 25 minute flight to Barcelona just in time to see the final of the World Cup. We were at a small bar with about half French supporters and half Italian. I think everyone in the room was shocked and awed about the Zidane send off. I still find it strange that Italy won the WC without playing that well. When we were in Italy, I thought the US outplayed the Italians. Anyways, this concludes the weekend.

#4: Classes

I am taking two classes, both in Spanish. One of them is a Past and Present History of Barcelona. The other is advanced spanish, which I was pleased to test into because I need this level to receive credit.
The culture class is filled with lots of field trips all over the city. My professor, Lucia, is very knowledgable of the city and is a devout Catalonian. I have really enjoyed this class and I find Barcelona's history more facsinating than anywhere I've studied. If you care to hear more let me know as I would love to share what I've learned with anyone in person.
The spanish class is pretty fun as our Profe, Alberto, is a good and entertaining teacher, and he speaks no english at all. This obviously has been helping us work on our spanish. All in all, I'm very pleased with my classes and the workload is not daunting which is nice because we have so much to do and see while we're here yet we need to take these classes for our degrees.

#3: Catalonian People

One very popular misconception about the people of Barcelona is that many people think that they´re...Spanish! This is not true. Although Barcelona is technically located in Spain, it is the capital of Catalunya, the small provence (soon to be country?) located in the upper righthand corner of Spain. In fact, the Spanish-Catalonian feud dates back in history longer than any current separation movement in the world. The reason the Catalans don´t get the press coverage that the Basques, Quebecs, or Irish do is because they are peaceful and have had a history of pacts with the Spanish government. Zapatero, the current Spanish PM from PSOE, or the Socialist party, has devolved a lot more autonomy to the Catalans. Catalan is the official language of Barcelona, not Castellano or Spanish. They(/we) have our own flag, government, and military.
Another clarification to make is regarding this aforementioned language problem. Although I´ve come to Barcelona to learn Spanish, Catalan is actually the oldest of the ´Romantic´languages born from Latin. This means that the Catalan language has been spoken longer than French, Spanish, Italian and Portugeuse. I have been doing my best to pick up as much Catalan as possible. The other night I said Adèu, Bona Nit to my Senora, which means Goodnight and Goodbye and she gave me the biggest smile I´ve seen yet. This is because the Catalan language is one of the most important cultural icons of these people. Under Franco, everything Catalan was repressed and today one can see Catalan Nationalism everywhere they turn.
A final note about the people. Several bizarre things--from an American standpoint--occur here. One, every Barcelonan complains about the heat...everyday you´ll hear ´Hace calor, calor calor´over 10 times. Two, Barcelona has a drought problem in the summer so we´re allowed to only shower once a day for no longer than 5-6 minutes, YET, they water the streets for hours on end everynight...clean streets or clean people, hmm? Third and finally, the people hear are very biased towards anything Catalan and they really hate Spain. This means everything from Soccer to food. The FC Barcelona football team is much more than a team, its emblematic of the Catalonian struggle for nationalism and freedom. Even the patch of the club has the coat of arms of Catalunya and of Barcelona. And finally, Catalonians do not like spicy food. Even the slightest bit of spice that we are used to will generally give you an unhappy Catalonian. Also, one final note, as my history class watched the opening ceremonies to the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, my professor was in tears and this was her 20th time viewing it or something like that. The pride and nostalga of the locals of the '92 games is very visible for a number of reasons. In many ways the '92 games were remembered as the most successful games ever. The year 1992 is significant for many reasons, but the city of Barcelona went above and beyond to ensure its memory into the international community, and every citizen of Barcelona participated in one way or another.

#2: Food


So again I apologize for not updating this thing as much as I´d like, the days here fly by so fast and there´s so much to do. Nevertheless, here I am to talk about the food.
Of course if any of you are familiar with the Mediterreanean diet, you know there is lots of oil. This doesn´t sound too healthly, but everything either cooked or dipped in olive oil is much healthier than what we cook with in the States. My favorite Catalan dishes are as follows: Tomate bread (smeared tomatoe on bread), Tortilla de patatas (Potato omelete usually eaten in a bocadillo or sandwich form), paella, mussels, gespacho (Andalucian gespacho from southern spain is had with cucumbers, croutons, cheese and onions, very delicious), crema de catalunya (tastes just like creme brulet, but the Catalonians always want to be different) and who can forget the Kebabs or Falefals. There are many kebab stands around Barcelona that will give you a lot of food for only €3-4. My friends and I have made friends with one of the kebab vendors near the Arc de Triomf.
The meals are generally as follows: a light breakfast in the morning, mid-morning snack, lunch is eaten generally from 2-4pm and is the largest meal of the day, and the entire city shuts down and reopens again at 4, usually tapas are eaten with a drink from 6-7, and finally dinner usually from 9-11. My senora generally eats salad and the first dish of dinner which is usually pasta, some type of mixed caper salad or soup, because she says she´s fat. This is funny because she´s not, but more on that when I write about the people.

Barcelona #1: My Señora/Housing


¡Hola!

Well I have moved from the hotel into a flat for the remainder of my time in Barcelona. My señora´s name is Sra. Carmen Queralto. We live fairly close to the city center off of the Entença metro stop for those of you familiar with Barcelona at all. To get to class I take the Blue line for two stops, transfer at Diagonal and get on the Green line to Plaça de la Catalunya. From here I have about a 5 minute walk to class.
Anyways, my room overlooks the Jardínes de Montserrat, which is a small park/garden area. There is also a Chinese girl who is teaching/studying here who lives in our apartment, but she leaves July 12th. Dinner is served everynight from 9:30-10, but more on the food later.
My señora is very nice and she will randomly clean or leave me folded laundry. We have talked politics, weather, travel, etc. She definately will speak her mind as the term and concept of PC (politically correct) is not well known. She has lived in Catalonia her whole life so she has taught me a lot and given me advice. It´s crazy to think that she has lived through a dictatorship, it must be so weird for her now to host students from all over the world.
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