Spring Break, Part 1

Tomorrow I leave with my Kansas group to Andalucia - the Southern part of Spain. (For reference, Santiago is in Galicia.) While this isn't really a holiday, this is built into our semester abroad and apparently we will be doing some learning, we get a week away from the rain and the cold to visit the sun and the warmer climate. We will be visiting Toledo, Granada, Seville, and Cordoba. I will return back to Santiago March 3rd.

Fear not, I will take un montón of pictures and write all about it when I get back to Santiago! I will try to pop into an internet cafe or two before I return, so hopefully if you send me any email I'll be able to get back to you before the 3rd.

Also, I would like to wish Clark a very happy 21st birthday (the big day is March 1st)!!! :)

hasta luego, mis amigos

¡Barcelona!

Sorry it has been so long between posts! The reason is Friday-Tuesday I was in Barcelona, Spain. That and my website is being difficult about loading pictures.

I went with five other girls from my group, and we stayed in a hostel off of Las Ramblas which is a famous street in the middle of downtown. The name – Hostel Paris – might lead you to believe this was a classy hostel at a reasonable rate but as we quickly learned the Hostel Paris was neither. I didn’t take any pictures because it wasn’t the sort of place you want to remember – our bathroom smelled like sewage and the desk people yelled at you if you were too loud – but it sufficed.

Las Ramblas

Another view of Las Ramblas - there were a lot of flower stands.

Our flight arrived at 10:30 and we didn’t make it to the hostel until 2, so our first day’s activities were limited to eating an “ethnic” dinner at McDonalds and going out for sangria. The part of Barcelona we were in was very touristy, so most of the restaurants advertised typical Spanish food – mostly pailla, tapas, y sangria. Kate very much enjoyed the sangria. :)

The next morning I woke up and took a stroll on Las Ramblas. I was randomly wandering when to my surprise and delight I noticed a Starbucks!! A real, live, America Starbucks with respectable size coffees! I felt like giggling the whole time I was standing in line. After the magical Starbucks experience I strolled through the rain and did a bit of window shopping. I decided to buy an umbrella, and stopped into one of the touristy stores. The umbrellas I saw didn’t have price tags so I asked the salesman how much they cost – in Spanish – and he replied in English. Four years ago when I was in Barcelona I would have thought of it as an oasis in a sea of babble but now I am a student here for the sole purpose of learning Spanish and I’ll be damned if I spent all of this money to never take the opportunity to practice my Spanish. Moreover, I feel like I am really improving and I’m not timid about speaking to people. Yet this guy wouldn’t give an inch, I kept asking questions in Spanish and he replied in English until finally I told him that I was a student and I knew Spanish. He replied, “But you are too beautiful to try.” Ugh. This, sadly, was also a typical thing I encountered – random comments from men to get your attention. Spare me, please. I’ll admit, sometimes it is nice to be noticed but it is quite a different thing when some random guy on the street will give you unsolicited comments just to try to get you to buy something.

Once everyone was ready, we embarked on our journey of the city. In the spirit of the urban experience, we took the subway around town.

Kate, in the subway, with one of her favorites

First we went to La sagrada famila which is a cathedral designed by the Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí. If you’d like to know more, you can check out the website http://www.sagradafamilia.org/eng/index.htm.

Basically it is a Cathedral that started construction 120 some years ago and still isn’t finished. Gaudí was basically Barcelona royalty – he also designed the Park Güell – and he has a very distinct, modern/Gothic style. I was absolutely fascinated by the experience. When I think of Cathedrals under construction, I think of way back in the day where there was the feudal system with Kings and serfs, let’s just approximate the 1200’s. So to be see to a Cathedral being built was really quite an experience, it felt like I was witness to history.

Not only that, but it was really interesting how intricate the building really is. I know nothing about architecture, or math, but I could appreciate how detailed and difficult it was to design a cathedral.

And it all was significant in some way – for example, on the outside there were four pillars that represent the four apostles. If you look closely inside at the post things you can see that their style mimics the trees that surround the Cathedral. Pretty neat, huh?

I also loved the modernist feel to it – it was Gothic enough that it felt similar to every other Cathedral I’ve seen but the modernist twist made it interesting, with an up-to-date look that to me made it seem less like the stuffy old gloomy building where the sorrows and sins of thousands of people had gathered through wars, confessions, and fire and brimstone sermons still linger on the walls and more like a fresh start with the light, excited feeling of the thousands opportunities that the future holds.

On a whim we decided to see the Arc de Triomf.

These signs are all over Spain and I think they are really funny. Yes, I agree that cleaning up after your dog is important but with your bare hand?!

After the Arc de Triomf we went to the Picasso Museum. It is supposed to be the most complete Picasso museum in the world – which makes sense seeing as Picasso grew up in Barcelona as well as began his education there. I really like Picasso – some of his stuff is a bit too weird for my taste but the thing I really like about Picasso is his ability to take something completely normal and make it look different, as if seen through another filter. Ok, so a lot of it looks like he was high when he painted it, but I love the idea that that things don’t have to always look a certain way. There was one room with 49 paintings which were all variations of Velazquez’s Las meninas. All of them resembled the original painting, but each of them was unique. It sort of reminded me how a hundred people can witness the same event but each of them remembers the event a little differently.

I'll show you a little of what I mean. Here is the original painting -

These are a few of Picasso's takes -

Sunday morning I again made the pilgrimage to Starbucks with a paper in hand. I had been aching to spend a morning reading the Sunday paper ever since I read my friend Jay’s gmail status that said he was spending the morning reading the Sunday Times then going to the gym. I bought a paper in Spanish and secretly hoped that people near me would mistake me for a native speaker. (This seemed to be the only opportunity that I’d ever had to be mistaken for a native speaker – because it didn’t involve actually opening my mouth.) I have noticed that with the papers here in Spain, US news is always towards the front, typically the second and third pages. Their takes on events are always a bit more negative than the Times or the USA Today’s version – but I find it curious that US events are so front and center. I’m trying to decide if this is because US events have such a large impact, or maybe the Spanish consider the US happenings very important.

When I reunited with the group we took the Metro to the Park Güell. Park Güell, as previously mentioned, was also designed by Gaudí so it had the tell-tale colorful tiles as well as imaginative architecture.

The only sad part was that the famous Salamander that greets people at the entrance to the park had been vandalized by some stupid kids.

I loved the park – but it really made me miss my mom. Last time I was there was with her, and my mom loves Barcelona so it kind of felt like eating sugar-free chocolate. You get some of the same taste, but it isn’t nearly as good.

Later we went back to Las Ramblas and half of the group wanted to see the beach and Kate, Alana and I went to Europe’s largest erotic museum. It was hilarious. I wasn’t sure it if was supposed to be a historical, scholarly museum (because it did have things from all over the world!) or if it was supposed to be more of an entertainment thing. Either way, we giggled through the entire museum. I took some pictures, but this is only the really kind of appropriate one. This sculpture is from Africa – see how happy they are!

That night we went out in search of Carnival parties. Carnival is a big deal in Spain, but we were sad to discover that the parades, costumes, and parties are mainly just in the smaller towns. Barcelona didn’t have anything really, which was a disappointment. We settled on an Irish bar. We ended up meeting a bunch of British sailors who were docked in Barcelona for the week. I have quickly learned that British English is very different than American English. First of all, the accent can be really hard to understand. The biggest difference, as Kate noted, is that they have a different vocabulary. For example, in British “pissed” means drunk. So when the sailors were talking about how they were “pissed last night” I kept waiting for them to specify what they were mad about. That night I wore my new red ballerina flats which of course got me dubbed “Dorothy”. Our new friends invited us to see their ship the following day, and of course we took them up on the offer. It was really incredible to see a real, live British warship. They gave us the full tour – I even got to sit in the captain’s chair and pretend to steer the boat. I kind of find it a bit hard to believe that it was OK to let civilians on the ship, but I’m not complaining. The ship – the HMS Montrose – was even in the Iraq war. Now they are sailing around the Mediterranean doing…something. I can’t really remember what.

This is "Spanner" and I, my first ever British naval friend.

Once we were on dry land we had dinner before heading to the airport. Our flight left at 7 am, but the trains stopped working at midnight so we decided it was best to just hang out at the airport for a long time versus trying to take it in the morning and risk missing our flight. We accidentally got on the wrong train, and then the trains shut down. Oops. Thankfully, two very helpful security guards called taxis for us. They were very nice, and also wanted pictures with us. (ps, that is my new purse and I love it!)

We got to the airport at 3 am. Now I kind of assumed that there wouldn’t be many flights, but it is an international airport. It was the weirdest thing ever – the lights were off, there were no people around, and it was completely silent. This should have made for perfect sleeping conditions but I couldn’t shake the fear of going into a deep sleep and missing my flight so I poked around the airport a bit.

When 7 am came around I was so exhausted that I was ready to fall over. Once we got into Santiago we had to wait for the bus and in that moment I really missed having a car. Public transportation is great because it is cheap and you don’t have to worry about parking – but as my dad always says you are forever on someone else’s time. You can’t just leave when you want to, you have to wait. And wait we did – for an hour an a half. I made it back to my apartment at 10 and all but collapsed on my bed.

Next Monday begins our group excursion to Andalucia, the Southern part of Spain. We’ll be there for a week visiting Cordoba, Seville, Granada, and Toledo. I’m really, really excited. So expect another monster post when I return :)

el cumpleaños espanola

Monday was my 21^st birthday. I woke up a bit melancholy because I knew that even though it was my birthday, I wouldn’t be able to celebrate with my family and friends. I checked my email as I ate my breakfast, and saw that two of my dearest friends – Clark and Naseem – had made a video for me wishing me happy birthday and pretending like they were celebrating with me. I must have watched it a dozen times; it really felt like they were right there with me. In that moment I decided to pull my head of my ass and change my attitude about my birthday. Yes, it wouldn’t be the same, but it wouldn’t stop me from enjoying the day.

I walked out of the apartment to another wonderful gift – sunshine! I beamed the whole way to campus. Once I got to class, I took a cue from my Aunt Suzy and told everyone that it was my birthday. I got lots of well wishes and was promised many free drinks. After class Hannah treated me to Burger King, which is quite a delicacy here in Santiago, especially because it tastes exactly the same as it does at home (read: no under-cooked, sketchy beef). Walking home I decided to buy some alcohol, not that I wasn’t able to the day before, but it made me feel very 21. I checked my email again once I got home and read all of the online cards and emails wishing me a happy birthday. I once again felt that even though the people I care about aren’t here in Spain in person, they were celebrating with me in spirit. I escaped to my grammar class after a short lecture from the roommate/landlady/resident dictator about how I didn’t clean the inside of the trashcan well enough (seriously?! On my birthday?!) and bought one of my favorite Spanish pastries on the way. I have no idea what they are called, but they kind of look like giant chocolate covered ears that are made of some sweet bread. In class my profesora sang happy birthday to me and tugged on my ear (apparently this is the Spanish tradition, which I much prefer to the American tradition of getting spanks on your birthday. Not that I’ve actually ever gotten spanked on my birthday, but still). Then Theresa (my German friend) gave me a bottle of wine with my name written on it decorated with little Kinder chocolates! I was so surprised/excited that I literally could not stop myself from giggling and clapping my hands.

After class Kate treated me to dinner, and then I returned home to a little fiesta with the roommates, along with Kate, Manu, Anna (my French friend), Theresa, and Jefferson.

Gabriel and his girlfriend gave me another bottle of wine, Mila gave me flip-flops from Brazil with little Brazilian flags on them, Manuel gave me some traditional Santiago cookies, and Jefferson made me a very ornate box out of paper.

Theresa, Me, and Anna!

Jefferson and I!

Mila and I!

Kate and Manu!


After we were done with the cake, we went to Moore’s per the usual Monday tradition for British/American trivia night. Once I got there I was surprised with another cake from my Kansas group!


The party at Moore's

I really hate this picture, but this is for you Clark and Naseem :)

The night was a ton of fun. I enjoyed several free drinks, and even tried a tequila shot or two (only because it was my birthday, I’m not really a fan of tequila). Mindy gave me this book in Spanish about “tu madre”(ha ha!!), and Farashta gave me a torta de Santiago, a cake that has an almond flavor to it and is one of my favorite things ever. Later in the night, I was serenaded by Kate and Anna who hijacked the microphone that is used for the trivia game.

As I walked home from the bar that night I thought about how lucky I was to have such incredible friends. I’ll try not to make this sound sappy – but bear with me a moment. One of my secret fears in coming to Spain was that my friends would forget about me a little. My birthday showed me that even though I’m not there in Kansas doesn’t mean that people forgot about me. In fact, quite the opposite. You all may be an ocean away, but you still are very close to me. Also, I feel very lucky to have such good friends here in Spain. I have only been here a month but already have several friendships that feel as fun and effortless as if I have had them for years.

So maybe distance really doesn’t matter. Perhaps you don’t need to see or talk to someone every day to have a good relationship with them. I think that realization was one of the best lessons I’ve learned so far.

With My Own Two Hands

First of all, I would like to extend a very excited “Rock Chalk” to my basketball team to beating K-State. I was a little scared when I heard that K-State and KU were actually tied in the rankings, but it is very nice to know that order has once again been restored to the universe.

Not a whole lot has been going on here in the rainy city of Santiago. This is an odd thing to report, because I am in Spain now I have a routine and all of those things that at first were so complex and unfamiliar are common and everyday. Even the language, believe it or not. I still have to be active about it – I can’t just walk down the street and catch bits of conversations if I am not paying full attention. Yet I can now understand almost everyone, and beyond that I can really talk to people. My ability to speak is growing largely because of my ego. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I don’t have, nor will ever have perfect Spanish. I’ll never get those freakin pronouns down and I’ll always fall victim to confusing words that sounds similar. However, if I just waited to only speak when I had the perfectly constructed sentence I’d hardly ever say anything. So, in typical Valerie fashion, I throw caution to the wind and open my mouth. At first it was really hard to get my point across, but it is becoming easier and easier. I want to hug anyone that compliments me on my improvement, because this truly is one of the most difficult and most rewarding things I have ever done in my life.

My classes are going well; I can’t really say that they are that difficult at all. We have grammar worksheets in our grammar/conversation class and every now and then I have to handwrite a 150 word essay, but other than that I can’t complain homework-wise. Wednesday I have a test in my business class but we’ve only learned how to write resumes, complaint letters, and the organization of businesses so I’m not losing sleep over it. In my grammar/conversation class (I write it like that because we have different classes each day but we use the same book and it is impossible to tell them apart) Kate and I are in the same class and one of our teachers has separated us (I can’t imagine why!). Also, we have taught the class “your mom” jokes. Not outright, of course, but we always seem to work them into our examples when we have to practice conjugation. At first the German girl (Theresa) and the French girl (Anna) were taken aback, but now they join in. It is really a lot of fun!

Yesterday Kate, Hannah, and Alana and I went to the Corte Ingles, which is the department store here in Spain. (http://www.elcorteingles.es/ if you have never seen one before). It is the most American shopping experience you can have here across the pond, they have everything from clothes, to furniture, to a bookstore. And the sales are still going on, so it is the perfect time for a shopping adventure. And an adventure it was! We had to take the bus since it was far away and rainy, but we took the wrong one at first before we realized we needed to take the 6. Getting there wasn’t a problem after that, but going home we quickly learned that the stops aren’t the same on the return route. We missed our stop on the way back but we assumed it wouldn’t be a problem since the bus would loop around anyway. Wrong! We drove all the way to another city, and after the last passenger got off the bus driver stopped the bus and demanded more money or get off right then. Since we didn’t know where we were, let alone how to get home, we paid for yet another ticket and he turned around the bus and we eventually got back to where we needed to be. Yet another example of how the Spanish do not know the meaning of “customer service”.

At the Corte Ingles I bought Harry Potter – in Spanish! I haven’t read any of the books yet, so I’m excited to finally be able to understand when people talk about Harry Potter. Now, I knew that I’d buy some books in Spain because I love me some books but it is becoming a bit of a problem. Right now these are all the books that I have to take home:

But I’m deciding not to worry about it because I’m very content with all of my purchases and you only live once, so heavy suitcases coming home be dammed!

I kind of have a cold right now, which seems to be about par for the course. Most of the people in our Kansas group has one or is getting over one, and both me and Manuel have one in our piso. Things in the piso are going very well. I adore Mila and we chat into the wee hours of the morning pretty much every day. I love that I can really talk to her, not just to practice Spanish, but because she is an incredible person. We are a lot alike, which sometimes causes problems because we both can get really loud and the landlady/roommate/resident dictator has to tell us to keep it down. Tonight we made dinner together which marks the first time I’ve ever had spaghetti with octopus, but it was really good. This week we are going to make cous cous together, I’m excited. The resident dictator has asked us all to be home tomorrow at 6 so we can have a piso pow-wow which I’m trying to decide if I want to attend. I have a feeling she’s going to yell at us and tell us to keep the kitchen cleaner or some other dumb thing like that and I’m really not in the mood. Plus, it will be my birthday eve.

Speaking of, it doesn’t feel like my birthday is Monday even though it is. I’ll be 21 but for some reason I’m not really all that excited. This will be my first birthday without my friends and family and for that reason alone it makes it feel not like a celebration and more like any other day. Except I’ll be older. I don’t have any plans yet, but I’m thinking about getting a cake/cookies and having my friends over and then going to a bar or something. I am sure it will be fun, just different.

Universally Speaking

This has been a big week in the piso. First of all, we had the German move in on Tuesday. His name is Manuel and he is really nice, he has only had 2 years of Spanish so we bond over being the non-fluent ones. Secondly, Mila had her birthday on the 31^st, and Gabriel has his birthday today. Mine is next Monday (the 12^th) and Manuel’s is on the 16^th. So we’ve had a lot to celebrate!

Wednesday Mila had her friends over for a pizza party to celebrate her birthday. It was also 5€ pizza night, which worked out nicely. She also had ice cream cake complete with candles. As I sat at the table with her friends and my roommates eating pizza off of plastic plates and drinking coke out of plastic cups it suddenly felt like almost every birthday party that I had ever been to. One of the big differences, however, was when we sang happy birthday to Mila we sang in everyone’s native language – so we all clapped and sang for the Portuguese, German, English, Italian, and of course Spanish versions.

The blonde guy is Manuel, the girl in the black shirt is the Birthday Girl, Mila, and the lady in the pink is my roommate/landlady/resident dictator Christina.

The very darling Mila and I with the flowers that I got for her. Mila is quickly becoming a very close friend of mine. She lectured me the other night about how I speak too much english. She told me that I came here to learn Spanish, and I wouldn't learn anything if I kept using English. So I took her advice to heart and have been making an effort to speak Spanish whenever I can, and I have noticed my improvement. Not only can I understand Spanish better, but I am at the level where I can really talk about my thoughts and opinons and not just basic "how are you/where are you from" conversations. Trust me, this is very exciting!

Gabriel’s party was last night. It was a typical Italian party Mila later told me. If you ever get invited to a party held by Italians be prepared to eat, eat, then eat some more. We had pasta, some sort of “mexican” dish (it wasn’t at all, but they tried), and plenty of finger food. And, of course, enough wine for a small country.

Saturday the Kansas group took a day trip to A Coruña, which is on the coast. There we went to a science museum that had a lot of interactive exhibits. It felt like Science City at Union Station in Kansas City, only it was in Spanish. We also got to see a planetarium show which I assume was also neat, but the night before I got home from my night activities three hours before the bus left for A Coruña (oops), so with my exhaustion combined with the comfortable slightly tilted chairs and the soothing voice of the speaker in the dark it was an instant nap.

This is me, not understanding the science or the Spanish. Ole!

Hannah, learning all about diseases.

Kate, doing an interpetive dance of explosions.


Me, Maria Jove (middle), and Mar (right). Maria Jove is our Islam Culture professor, Mar is our director and if you look closely she looks like my Grandma Alice. (Sometimes when I am feeling particurally homesick I want to ask her for a hug and pretend it is my Grandma.)

After lunch we had some free time and we made our way to the ocean. I’ve only seen the ocean a handful of times in my life, and this was my second time seeing the Atlantic. I thought about the first time I saw the Atlantic; I was with my whole family at Virginia Beach. We rented a house and stayed for a week. One day I was playing in the water with my cousin and sister when I was stung by a jellyfish. I was in a panic because it hurt and I had no idea what to do, except to cry. My Grandpa Jim, who was watching us, came over and rubbed sand on my wound and the singer came out and I survived. Then there I was, ten years later, on the other side of the Atlantic without my Grandpa. I knew there would be more jellyfish in my life, and that there wouldn’t be my Grandpa there with all the solutions. It made me sad, but also made me realize for a moment just how much I’ve really changed – I was here, alone, in a foreign country with a foreign language and have thrived here all on my own. I wish I could describe this feeling a bit better – I feel a bit as if I have betrayed my family and friends by experiencing so much without them but also very proud to know that I can be completely independent.

I have also come to realize, between the birthday parties, classes, and spending time with my friends how universal some things really are. While there are some pronounced differences – for example, in Spain it is not considered rude to tell someone they are getting fat or to inform in detail exactly what you did when you went to the bathroom or to stare at people. However, people here are really, at the core, no different from any person I have met in the United States . They have birthday parties, they gossip about people they think are attractive, their feelings get hurt when they are rejected, they laugh at jokes their friends tell them, they complain about the weather. I feel like I’ve also taught this to a few people as well. Most of Mila’s friends have never met anyone from the States before, and they tell me they are surprised that I am so different from the impression that they had about Americans. I know this sounds really cheesy, but I wish everyone could understand how we really are more similar than we are different.