Spring Break Part 2: Italy

Today at 8:45p Kate, Mindy, Farashita and I are going to Italy for Semana Santa, which is Holy Week but also our Spring Break. Not to be confused with Andalucia, which was just our Spring Break warm-up. We are flying into Rome, spending two days there, then flying to Venice where we will also probably go to Bologna, then we'll go back to Rome, hang out for a few days then return back to Santiago on the 4th of April.

I am excited, but today I have hit a complete baja because my director emailed me saying that my professors are worried about me because I seem tired and not focused in my afternoon classes. ?? So they want to know if I have any problem in my life right now, or if I am going though a hard time or something - perhaps I was too excited about my mom coming. ?? This came as a complete shock because while I will admit, I'm not laser focused in my 4:30-6:00p class because a) it's basically Spanish 5 from high school all over again and b) sometimes there are interesting things outside the window. But for christsake, I have only missed 1 class, I talk more than anyone else in the class, and I always do my homework. So I honestly have no idea what my perceived problem is. It is really hard to hear this because just the other day I was thinking about how well I am doing here in Spain - I've adjusted, I take care of myself, I have made great friends, I get really good grades in my classes. I have been warned before to pick it up in classes, but there's always been some obvious shortcoming - I didn't turn in stuff on time, I would show up late, I wasn't participating enough. But this is out of nowhere. I am really frustrated and upset. Today was the second time I've cried in Spain.

Oh well. At least I get a week to escape it all.

Madrid, the Capitol City with a lot of rules (that act as suggestions)

This weekend I was in Madrid. The trip started out with a trial-and-error experiment: Do you really need your passport to travel internationally? Let me just quickly add that I was flying from Santiago to Madrid - that is within Spain. I've been here so long that it doesn't feel like I'm traveling internationally when I am just going around Spain. So...it didn't even occur to me to bring my passport. Yet, it is still considered international travel. Oops. I did, however, remember my reservation number so I was able to get my ticket from the machine instead of going to the desk, but when we were boarding I needed to show my passport. I showed my International Student ID card (which is a card with a picture that I laminated) and the security lady had a fit. She wouldn't let me board and took me to a phone so she could call her boss, and after a lecture and much scolding she let me on the airplane. I wasn't really afraid, there were other flights and I could taxi back to my apartment, but my poor mother looked as if she was going to have a heart attack. I was a bit nervous for the return flight (I did get a faxed copy of my passport from my director) but Madrid security was even easier - I showed the same homemade card and no one asked any questions. Answer: No!

Our first night we were tired from the flight and navigation through the maze of the Madrid subway.
We decided to make it an easy night of dinner and then chocolate con churros at a famous chocolateria that my mom always takes her students too. We ate at a restaurant called Nebraska (ha ha!) which had excellent salads, and this stupid waiter who wouldn't let me order a calimocho which is red wine and coke. So I ordered a red wine AND a coke and made my own drink. The whole time we were eating there was this slightly middle-aged man sitting near us facing me who stared at me the whole time. Now, I have grown accustomed to the "Spanish Stare" but he went beyond a curious glance to winking at me and smiling. Did I mention that he was wearing a wedding band? and I was with my mom? and he had to be at least 20 years older than I? When he got up to left he winked and smiled again. Men! After dinner and the excellent dessert we hit the sack - in the beautiful hotel with enormous beds.

That morning Kate, Mom and I did the rounds of museums. We first, of course, had to stop at Starbucks then to a little overpriced restaurant for breakfast. On our walk there, Kate noticed this McDonald's sign with bad English:
We began with the Renia Sofia which is an art museum in what used to be a hospital. There are myths that it is haunted. I can assure you there are no angry ghosts lurking the halls of the Renia Sofia - but there are some really angry guards. I, of course, have to learn this first hand because I took a picture of little españolas on a field trip. I couldn't help it, they were just so cute! Anyway, I got yet another lecture from a lady guard who demanded that I erase the picture and told me I was violating the privacy of the children. Whatever. Here is the illegal picture:

Aren't they adorable?
We also saw the most famous painting in the museum, Guernica by Picasso. It is a painting about when the city of Guernica got bombed by the Germans because Franco (the dictator of Spain) let Hitler practice his new bombs. Kate impressed my mom and I by rattling off a bunch of facts about the painting that she learned in her culture class. For example, the flower in the middle of the painting represents hope.
After the Renia Sofia we made a slight detour on our way to the Thyssen-Bornemisza and took some pictures.

Mom and I in front of the Prado.
This was also outside of the Prado - I thought it was cool (albeit girly).
Kate doing the Italian hand gesture. Kate and I use this a lot because it is awesome and fun. In fact, most of everything we said on our Andalucia trip was said in an Italian accent punctuated by this gesture. Julia, our Italian friend taught us that you are only supposed to use it when you've been insulted by someone and you are responding to it. For example: "you look really fat in that new shirt", you would reply with an appropriate retort and use this hand gesture:
The Thyssen-Bornemisza was a first for all of us and it was probably my favorite art museum ever. We couldn't take pictures inside, but if you want to check out the link the website is really cool.

After we were all museumed-out we ate lunch at a swanky yet reasonably priced Italian restaurants. We had pizza, my mom and I split a tropical one that had bananas and pineapple on it. It was really delicious, and while we were eating we saw my roommate Manuel in the window. He was in Madrid this past weekend as well, and he waived to us! It was really a warm fuzzy feeling to see him - sometimes I find it a little hard to believe that I've made such good friends in such a short time. Once we were done eating we walked back in the general direction of our hotel and we stopped at a pasteleria for desserts. My mom pointed out that we were right next to Hotel Moderno which is the hotel we stayed in the first time we came to Spain 5 years ago.
While eating our desserts we did a bit of shopping before we headed back to the hotel for a quick nap. Once we were rested, we met up with Jeff and walked to the Plaza Mayor.
We had another early dinner then took my mom out for a drink. Kate really wanted to buy her a shot but it was too early in the night, so we settled for a cocktail. Since it was really early by Spanish time (9:00pm) we had a little trouble finding an open bar. Once we found an appropriate one (we whiffed big time on our first choice, it didn't have much liquor and terrible blush wine), we ordered her a Malibu rum with pineapple juice, which she really liked. We went to the hotel early because my mom had to get up early for her flight. It was sad to see her leave - it was the first time that I've ever been somewhere away from home and my mom has left without me. Despite how hard it was to see her go...

...but it was so worth it every moment she was here.
Kate and I slept in and once we got up and checked out of the hotel we decided to go on a photo safari! But first we needed to find a hostel. Staying at where we were wasn't really in our price range, so we decided to jump on the Metro and get off at a random stop kind of far from the center of town and find a cheaper hostel.

We looked around in the Lavapiés neighborhood which was the "affordable" section of town during the '70's and '80's where all of the young people live.
But we couldn't find a hostel. Not a single one. So we got off at the Retiro stop and didn't have any luck there either. Finally, we decided to go back to where we came from. We went to 5 different hostels that were all full. On our sixth try we found Hostal David - which was a 1 star hostel.
This was quite a downgrade from our luxurious, mom-paid-for hotel. But it was cheap, only 42€ for the night, so we took it. Our room -
We had to share a bathroom with the floor, I'll spare you pictures of that. Let's just say that we made a good choice foregoing showers that next morning.

Once we had dropped off our backpacks, we headed to Carrefour to buy lunch then went to the Parque Retiro and had a picnic!

The entrance to the park.

Our favorite part of the picnic was this 1L box of blush wine -















Which, needless to say, we thoroughly enjoyed. And the best part was that it was only 43 cents.







The kids that were near our picnic that almost hit us with their soccer ball a few times.
We saw this little kid, poor thing. If you click on the picture you can see it in better detail, but this unfortunate little kid was born to very European parents who not only like faux-hawks, but also mullets. This kid has no chance.
We really enjoyed the sunshine.
After we were done eating we walked around and took some pictures!

A fountain!
Winnie the Pooh (que raro)!
A lake with some boats!
The statue with a man on a horse!
A closer view of the columns!
Free hugs from strangers!
Us! amigas para siempre! We are a couple of hot beaches :)
We left the park to go see the Royal Palace. As we were leaving we saw this arch -
A few confused metro stops later we made it close to the Royal Palace. As we walked there we passed the Senate -
The ice cream man -
And a sign in the nearby Parque de Espana that read "it is prohibed to piss on the grass". The funny part is that there was such a problem at one point in time that it necesitated a sign. (edit: so my mom just emailed me and informed me that "pisar" does not mean "to piss" it means "to step on". Whoops. Still, it looks like "to piss" and is therefore funny all the same!)
We finally made it to the Royal Palace just before the sun started to set. I waved to the King and Queen, but I don't think they saw me.
The Church across from the Royal Palace.
Some statue in the park across from the Royal Palace.
Walking home we got a beautiful view of the city at night.
Then as we made our way back through the Parque de Espana we saw Don Quixote in lights!
We passed H&M on our way to dinner and we couldn't help but go in. Kate found these sweatshirt jackets that we both fell in love with so Kate bought one in grey and I bought one in black. I also got a black and white stripped sweater that makes me feel very Parisian.

To end our photo safari, Kate wanted pictures of the prositutes that were near our hostel. We weren't in a bad part of town by any means, but a few streets over we discovered that there were a ton of prositutes. I don't know if prositution is legal in Spain, but they were out and about at 2pm. I wasn't so keen on the idea of taking pictures, but this was the first time Kate and I had ever seen real live prositutes so it seemed like an OK idea. If nothing else, it would be a good story.
I kind of like this picture because it seems artsy, dark, and dangerous. In all reality, the only dangerous thing about Prositute Row was being mistaken for a prositute. As Kate and I were walking down the street, some older woman - we guessed she was a madam - rubbed both of our arms (and our brand new jackets!) and said "Ay chicas, que fria!" which translates to "girls, it is cold!". That was enough to get me to leave. As we started briskly walking further down the street, some guy turned to Kate and said "Hola, hello..." after that we ran.

The night at the 1 star hostel wasn't as bad as I anticipated it would be.
After the hooker run-in, bars in Madrid being expensive, and having a flight in the morning we decided to stay in.
That next morning (Natalie's 18th birthday!) we had our final breakfast at Starbucks before we used our last Metro ticket to get to the airport. Thankfully, I was able to get on the airplane. (If I wasn't able to get on the airplane it wasn't as if I would have been stranded in Madrid, there was also a train back to Santiago, and you don't need your passport for that, but it is 8 hours and another 50€.) I sent a text message to my poor mother as soon as I was on the airplane because I knew she'd worry until she heard from me.

Going home I reflected on the lessons that I had learned from our Madrid trip: always bring your passport when you are flying in Europe, don't rob the innocence of children by taking their pictures, don't hang out where the hookers do, and your best friend + your mom makes for one of the best weekends ever.

Mom in Spain

As previously noted, my Mom and Jeff (my mom's friend who also teaches Spanish at Shawnee Mission Northwest) came to visit last week. The weather, while dry, warm, and sunny, decided to switch back into Santiago weather - so Mom and Jeff got the true Santiago experience of cold and rain. (at least now that it is spring it doesn't rain all day, it would rain for about 20 minutes, then have an hour of sun, repeat) They stayed at the Hostal Mexico which is the same hostel that the Kansas group stayed at in the beginning of our semester. I live a very convenient two blocks away, so I was able to meet them every morning before breakfast.

Monday I endured two extremely long morning classes before I met Mom and Jeff for a guided tour of the Cathedral. I was especially excited to go since I had always wanted to go but hadn't been yet. The whole walk from class I was silently begging the weather to cooperate for at least an hour while we were on the roof of the Cathedral. However, we would have no such luck.

Mom and Jeff, at the start of the tour, during the very brief part inside.
When the pamphlet said "tour on the roof" it literally meant the ROOF. Combine the steepness of the roof, with the wind and the rain and you can understand why my Mom was so grateful that she didn't fall and twist her ankle (again).
My mom's face says it all - "Even though this is an experience of a lifetime, get me the hell off this roof" :)
Despite the elements, there were some spectacular views.
For lunch we had donners, which are Turkish sandwiches that I adore. I was very pleased that Mom and Jeff liked them! After we bought umbrellas and did some shopping (my mom scored a grey sweater from Zara) I took them to my afternoon class. Class was a lot of fun, it was my conversation class and my teacher even made them participate by asking them questions and asking them to read parts of our reading about fiestas in Spain out loud. After class, we walked a little around Campus Sur so I could show them what my university looks like. We had a coffee after that at a cafe near where I live. For dinner we went to my favorite tapas bar.

Mom and Jeff with patatas bravas.
We decided after dinner to have a drink, so I took them to Alborque which is one of my favorite bars here in Santiago. Since we ate early (Jeff and Mom still weren't quite on Spain time) the bar was fairly empty. I will say it was the first time I'd ever seen the floor in the bar area. I introduced my mom to crema de orujo which is a liquor that tastes like Bailey's, but a million times better.

Tuesday morning we had breakfast and I made my mom some fresh-squeezed orange juice. We have an electric juicer here at the piso, so it wasn't the laborious ordeal that making orange juice usually is. We had some time to kill before class, so I took them to Carrefour which is the grocery store that I shop at. I showed them all of the European/Spanish things - milk on the shelf, legs of ham, and cans of octopus. After our grocery experience, we embarked on the hike to Campus Norte to my morning literature class.

A view of campus, this is the Auditorium where they have concerts and stuff - it is right next to the dorm where my classes are.
In class we watched a movie called ¿Qué hace una chica como tu en un sitio como este? which was supposed to be symbolic of the tension between the "new Spain" and "old Spain" after Franco died, but they spoke so fast and used so much slang that most of it was lost on me. And, it was really weird. After class we ate at the cafeteria, which in all reality is more like a restaurant on campus because they have waiters that come and take your order then bring you your food. I had my standard sandwich vegetal and croquetas. I was excited for Mom and Jeff to try them, but sadly neither of them liked the deep-fat fried little pieces of heaven. Once we had finished our lunch, Mom and I went to the museo das Peregrinacions which is a museum about the pilgrimage that people take to the Cathedral here in Santiago (because St. James is buried here). It was really cool to see all the pictures, but all of the signs were in Gallego, so I didn't understand a lot of it. After the museum I went to class and my mom and Jeff took a much deserved siesta. We met up after class for chocolate con churros which is a thick hot chocolate with long marker-thick doughnuts that you dip in the chocolate. yum. We walked around a little more in the old zone to do some shopping. I showed my mom this park near the cathedral dedicated to the University of Santiago-
We went to a jewelry store nearby and my mom got a really elegant pair of earrings. Since it was so close, we also went to the university bookstore and scored these really cool t-shirts that have the seal of the University that glow in the dark - at 25% off! We also got a tour of Kate's piso -for comparison - before returning to my piso where I made dinner of pechuga de pollo al limon con patatas al vapor. While that sounds all fancy and complicated, it is really only chicken cooked with lemon and garlic and potatoes. Still, I felt very adult making my own mother dinner in my apartment. My mom met Mila, and they both liked each other very much. I was delighted that they got along so well - but in all honesty, who doesn't love my mom and who couldn't like Mila? - and Mila even noted to my mom that now that she knows her she can feel good about sending me to Brazil! :) That night we planned to go to the jazz club Da do da da but we were all so tired that we called it an early night.

Wednesday we took a day trip to A Coruña. We took the train and were there in about an hour. Again, the weather wasn't our friend. It was even colder and windier, so we decided to go to the aquarium Finisterrae. It is called casa de los peces (home of the fish) and it was so cute! (note: I had been there before, but this time I was alert enough to enjoy it)

Seahorses!
Most importantly, do not take pictures of the fish because the flash stuns them. My mom kind of forgot this a few times, despite the very adorable signs -
We managed to get outside in the glimpse of clear sky and take a picture by the sea.
After the aquarium we had lunch, and since it was too cold/windy to walk on the beach we walked to the Corte Ingles instead. Once we had gotten our fill of shopping we decided to head back. At the train station my mom got a little confused and asked for a ticket to "Segovia, no, Salamanca, no...Santiago!". What made that all the more funny, besides my mom forgetting where I live, was that the train goes to all of those places so the poor man that sold the tickets was really confused. Once we got back to Santiago and rested a little bit, my mom and I did another round of the Santiago stores buying birthday presents for my sister. On the street we ran into Gabriel and his girlfriend and I introduced them to my mom. I totally forgot his girlfriend's name, which made for an awkward moment, oops. We reunited with Jeff for dinner at the cerverceria, my favorite one in the new zone. I tried to get my mom to order a Lambic - which is a Belgian beer that is so fruity that you can't tell it is beer - but she said that she could taste the beer so oh well, strike 2 on food I thought my mom would like. I made up for it big time after dinner when we met Kate for chocolate rocks at the Cafe Rock. I think I've talked about them in a previous post, but they are hot chocolates spiked with Frangelica. They are amazing, and my mom thought so as well. We had a really good chat with Kate who had gotten home the day before from France where she visited our friend Anna at her home in La Rochelle. They kind of had an ordeal getting back to Santiago because it snowed in Northern Spain that night so the 15 hour bus ride turned into 18.

The next day, Thursday, we had another breakfast together then walked around the city one last time before we went to Madrid. Our first stop was the tourism office where my mom and Jeff picked up some information on the city. Then, in typical Spanish style, we stopped at the cafe casino for a mid-morning coffee. I had always wanted to go into this cafe because it looked really neat on the inside, and I was even more impressed experiencing it firsthand.

Cafe Casino
My mom, looking very European.
When we were leaving we saw Kate walking to class (sucker!). Before lunch we took Mila's advice and went to one of the Chinese stores and bought a cheap suitcase so my mom could take a good portion of my crap home. This truly was an amazing idea, I now feel confident that I can take all of my stuff home now. While we were packing at my apartment, Jeff and my roommate Manuel's friend Daniel bonded because Daniel was wearing a shirt from Grand Forks, North Dakota which just happens to be where Jeff is from. Daniel had no idea where Grand Rapids really is, he just bought it because it was in English (a common thing here in Europe). For lunch we went back to the Latino Bar and then went to the bakery Pan Pan and got some amazing palmeras. We leisurely walked back to the piso and met Kate a short while later before we went to the airport to catch our plane to Madrid.

All in all, it was a very fast week but it was so incredible to see my mom again. I was so excited to show her what my days here in Spain are like. I at times I was so excited to see her that I feared I talked her into a coma :) She gave me a hug from everyone she could think of, and I remembered just exactly why no matter how much I will travel no place will ever seem like home without her.