Week 31: Starting Spring Break!

Gosh am I more glad than ever that it’s finally Spring Break! I’ve been making plans and looking forward to these 10 days for almost the whole semester here in Spain, and it’s been fabulous so far!! Before I get too ahead of myself, I’ll recount the week before I left, and then fill you in on where I’ve been so far. (I have to break Spring Break up into the week before and the first weekend of, and then the rest, because if not, my Spring Break post would probably be insufferably long (longer than my Paris and London post last semester!).)

On Monday I chose to arrive at my internship an hour earlier than usual on one of the teacher, Belén’s, suggestions, because she had mentioned to me that they were a great group and it would be a pity if I never got to see them. With that in mind, I made sure I got up early enough to be presentable for the day, and then went into school having prepared a presentation about Easter and Holy Week, since I wouldn’t be seeing the students until well after the holiday itself otherwise. As I love Prezi so much, I ended up finding a cool Prezi about Easters around the world, and so I presented that along with some videos and games, again depending on the teacher. In the afternoon and evening, as I would find myself doing very frequently in the subsequent days, I crammed as much work in as possible into the few hours I had, so as to avoid having much work to do over break.

Tuesday was pretty normal, classes and everything were fine, but unfortunately my French conversation partner was already on vacation, and so I missed out on a French conversation. Nonetheless, I had other things to do as well, such as a chat with some Spaniards about how sports are different in Spain and the States, especially with high school sports. (Apparently if you want to do any kind of sports at all in Spain, you have to have lots of money, even in high school. There are no options to just do it with school; it’s all club sports here.) Then, in the evening, something I had been looking forward to for a week or two now happened: my dinner for winning Operación Español! My classmates in Toledo had voted me as the one who spoke the most Spanish and also integrated myself best into the Spanish culture, and so as a reward, I got to take two friends to a local restaurant and enjoy some excellent tapas for free! Lindsay and Johanna accompanied me for this excellent cultural experience, and we had a great time trying new dishes and speaking in Spanish.

Winner! With our appetizing delicacies of choice: salad, bull tail ravioli, and patatas bravas.

Me, Lindsay, and Johanna!

A strange thing happened on Wednesday, after theology class: I walked the 15 minutes over to where my internship is, and they told me that I had no classes to teach that day, as all the possible classes would be receiving a lecture that day on not doing drugs. I just happened to stay to chat for a bit with Santi, and then made my way back to the Fundación for theology class. Once again, I tried to write papers and catch up on homework… Which ended up failing at least halfway, as I spent half or more of my free time talking to my parents and my sisters on the phone. But I suppose that's important too. I had English conversation with Sara and her mom again in the evening, which was an excellent time for me to practice my English teaching skills in a foreign country, and before I knew it, it was time to turn in for the night. Thursday was more of the same monotony of routine, four classes and trying to get work done in the gaps, but I made it through, and I finished up packing for what is sure to become one of the best trips of my life!

Friday morning, I caught the bus to Madrid at 9:00AM, and from there, I made my way to the beautiful coastal city of Alicante, Spain. What a beauty it was! I wandered around a bit heading to the beach, and avoiding the street vendors along the way (which funny enough let me know I was going the right direction). The beautiful beaches of Postiguet were wonderful, and I felt very overdressed, as in dressed too warmly. The first thing I did was eat lunch, since it was already late for lunch, even on Spanish time. Then, I changed into my bathing suit and just relaxed on the sand and in the sun for an hour or two. It was such a relaxing way to pass time; not having to answer to anyone, just chilling and getting a tan. Once I had had enough of the sun, I made my way over to the bus station to catch a shuttle to the airport, and soon after I was chilling in the airport for a night.

It's like summer here!

The castle, mountain, and beach.

Wish it would have been like this in Portugal in January... ;)

Very early the next morning, I had my flight from Alicante to Palma de Mallorca, and so I got on the flight without problems and everything went smoothly. During the flight, I was just still thinking about the recent crash in the news about the co-pilot deliberately crashing the Germanwings plane, and praying to God that we didn’t have a rogue like that on our plane. I arrived in Palma at 9:00AM, after a fitful sleep on the plane, and I walked around to find the grocery store before checking into my hostel. (My meals total for the weekend ended up being a little over 11€ - no small feat there!) I got a little frustrated trying to find the hostel, because it was relatively far away from where I had went grocery shopping, but when I finally got there, I checked in and collapsed into my bed for a nap that would end up being 4 hours. After that, I woke up, met my roommate in the hostel, who is super nice; she motivated me to actually get out of bed and take a nice stroll along the beach, which was absolutely beautiful - I highly recommend it to anyone who will be visiting Mallorca! Then, basically, I had dinner and slept (with messaging family & friends in between), and then after such a long day, I collapsed into bed, falling effortlessly asleep.

My first view of the magnificent cathedral.

It truly lives up to its name, what with all these palm trees all over the place!

Hello Palma!

The beautiful sunset on the beach.

Palm Sunday started bright and early for me, at 8:30AM. I got to the absolutely beautiful cathedral in the city very early for noon mass, and so while I was waiting, I sat out by the fountain in front and wrote some postcards that I had planned to send to some friends. Before I knew it, it was time for mass, and what a beautiful cathedral and excellent mass they were. Wow. It was definitely not the worst way to spend a Palm Sunday alone. I then had lunch on the lawn not too far from the cathedral, took in more sunshine and warmth, and then half-heartedly looking for a mailbox to be able to send the postcard before realizing that it was Sunday and therefore giving up and just heading to the airport. Before I went through security, I spent an hour or two organizing my life, eating dinner, and just generally getting prepared for the next leg of my trip, and then I finally made my way through the chrome gates and different sensors of security. Then I was on my flight to Bergamo!

Mass in the Cathedral. It was breathtakingly beautiful.

Eating lunch after mass in the cathedral!

Once I landed in Bergamo, it was a little bit of a struggle for me to find the actual hostel I was staying in, due to the late hour and therefore lack of public transportation, but I think I did alright. I ended up grabbing a cab, which wasn’t terrible, except for the Italian people on the phone speaking in Italian whom I could barely understand. Then, when I checked in, the receptionist happened to be a temporary replacement who is absolutely bat-s*** crazy; he’s a Vietnam vet, says that the U.S. will be ready to arrest him if he were ever to cross the border into the country again, and believes in all the crazy conspiracy theories from just about every group in the book about the U.S. Presidency. I listened to this nut job’s speech for over an hour, and then he finally got on his way with checking me in and getting me to my room (which clearly was never his priority in the first place). Once I got in the room, I mercifully got to speak with all my family, and I was definitely happy to catch up with them, but also wanting to get as much sleep as possible for the week ahead!

This week has been amazing so far, with only more good things to come! Finishing up classes for the moment, traveling to new places, and lots more new places to see and friends to meet up with on the immediate horizon. I’m definitely living the dream right now! (Except for my 30-pound backpack, haha.) Since Spring Break goes this entire next week and I’m sure I’ll have lots more to tell, I’ll talk to you all later - ¡Hasta pronto!

Week 30: Taking a break for a moment

This week was one of my last “chill” weeks in Toledo. As I’ll be traveling for the next few weekends, I decided to just kick it in Toledo to try to catch up on homework and live a normal week all the way through. So, that’s exactly what I did. (This might end up being one of the shortest blog posts I write on this blog! haha.)

On Monday, I had my internship as usual, and so with Monday being the day before St. Patrick’s Day, I ended up giving my St. Patrick’s Day presentation a lot. As an example of what one of the teachers decided to add on, Maria Luz wanted to get her students reading and speaking in English, and so we looked at some very simple limericks, which was fun for me to figure out the rhythm, and interesting for the students to figure out the pronunciations so that the ends of lines rhymed. I tried to get through my internship as normally and happily as possible, because I had learned the previous night that Toby would indeed be going to a better place today, and so I kept it together as best I could. In the evening, I made sure to call my parents, if only to be there, especially for my mom who had been miles closer to him than us all, for a moment. I said lots of prayers, and called my sisters as well, and we all comforted ourselves with the thought that Toby would now be in a better place. He’ll certainly be waiting for us in heaven over the Rainbow Bridge.

The next day was St. Patrick’s Day, but regrettably I had nothing green to wear. Anyways, I had classes and my wonderful French conversation with Noelia as usual, and then met up with my theology presentation partners just before an evening presentation at school to try to practice our theology presentation for the next day, but I ended up just talking about Toby and my family. Oops. It did help me to talk about it though. So we continued onto the presentation, which would be explaining part of the history of the Camino de Santiago, which we will be on excursion there after the end of exams (that blessed day). It was suggested that we bring vaseline and two pairs of socks for our feet, walking poles for comfort, and only what we needed in our backpack so as not to weigh us down too much. We also got a little introduction to what our itinerary would be, and the environment of the cities where we would be visiting. It turns out that we will be doing part of the Camino Portugués, from Palácios to Braganza, and then also visiting the Spanish cities of Zamora and then ending up in Braganza. After the meeting, I had chosen to participate in a dinner with some ladies who had come to visit the Fundación from the University of Minnesota, the school that communicated with the Fundación so that I could be here, to be able to give feedback on the whole program and how everything was going (as they were here to evaluate the program in its entirety, up to sitting in on classes). A handful of other students and I got the opportunity to speak our mind about different issues with the program as well as what we liked, and so it was a nice dinner and a great time.

The rest of the week passed by pretty quickly. Classes as usual (theology and internship on Wednesday; theater, lit, and history on Thursday), homework as usual, and trying to catch up on homework over the weekend. I definitely spent a lot of time on the phone with my family, and I’m starting to feel a little bit of the bug to be moving on and getting planning with my family for when they come here. I also started to feel the first little urges to go home, which is saying something since I haven’t really been super homesick this entire trip. I spoke with my parents and we discussed budgeting for the rest of the trip, and also I’m just starting to figure out my summer plans, as I’ll need to be both working and taking multiple summer classes to be able to graduate on time.

It was certainly a nice week to just relax and take advantage of downtime to be able to do homework and plan for the future and whatnot, but as I mentioned, I’m also starting to get a little restless. I absolutely cannot wait for Spring Break next week, as I’ve finally firmed up all my plans! I’m heading to Alicante and Palma de Mallorca over Palm Sunday weekend, Venice and Cinque Terre during the week, and Antwerp to reunite with friends from last semester over Easter weekend! I can’t wait to see friends, take a break, and just travel travel travel! And of course I’m looking forward to seeing my parents after almost nine whole months away. I’ll catch you all next weekend - until then, ¡Hasta pronto!

Week 29: St. Patrick, Don Quixote, and St. Teresa of Avila!

What an exciting week this has been! Between St. Patrick’s Day, learning about Don Quixote and that whole story on Friday, and my Confirmation saint, Teresa of Avila, over the weekend, I have definitely done lots of out-of-class learning this week, and I’ve loved every second of it! Except for one moment of sadness in the middle of the weekend, it has been incredible.

Since it’s the week before St. Patrick’s Day, I did my presentation about St. Patrick’s Day in half of the classes I helped out with, which was fun because once again each teacher had their own spin to add to the lesson. We watched videos, we talked about vocabulary, and we talked about how Americans celebrate the holiday (including the Chicago river, which is a little more famous than I thought!). After my internship was over for the day, I headed over to school to work on some papers, and I also practiced a skit for my internship class with my classmates. (We had to act out a scene from the Almodovar movie that “represented a typical Spanish family of that decade.” Right.) By the time we were pretty solid on that, it was time to get home and try to get some other homework done before dinner, and so I got right to it. At dinner, my host brother Ignacio’s girlfriend Rocí came over, which is always a treat - she’s such a nice girl!, and she mentioned that she wanted to practice her English with me. Of course I agreed, and we set up a time to chat. After dinner I had more papers and homework to do, and so I quickly retreated to my room to work on those, and of course before I knew it, my eyes were closing, and so I snuggled into a deep sleep.

Tuesday was a hectic day. Not entirely busy, but definitely lots of things to do, turn in, and lots of people to talk to. I tried to get up early once again to finish some papers, but that kind of failed, and so I scrambled around trying to get ready in time. In my internship class, we finally performed our skit, which went off without a hitch, and everybody was laughing by the end. We watched a movie of the play we’re studying in my theater class, which was nice for two reasons: because it’s a movie, and because it’s cool to see an actual visual representation of theater, as that’s what it was made for (anybody who’s ever studied any kind of theater whatsoever, even just casually in English class, knows how difficult it is to read theater off a page (think Shakespeare) and try to understand everything). Then finally in my literature class, we continued analyzing poetry, which is actually one of my favorite fields of literary analysis due to all the context you have to know and how significant each and every word is. Finally, I met up with Noelia for coffee and some French conversation, which was lovely as always, and we made sure to try to hit on topics she would have to elaborate on in her writing exam the next week (the DELF). That day I also went to a bible study with some of my Christian friends, which was a cool experience even though it ended up being less about the Bible and more about sharing our faith experiences. I haven’t gotten too many chances to do stuff like that here in Europe, and so this opportunity was refreshing. After that, I once again had my afternoon free, and so I returned to my host family’s house to try to do homework. I did end up spending a fair amount of time chatting with Alex about our travel plans for the rest of the semester. I actually did get to go to Zumba today, which was probably my favorite part of the day! As always, I got to have fun while exercising and combatting stress (which I have all too much of these days). So, altogether, a great day!

As usual, Wednesday and Thursday kind of flew by, and so between classes and my internship, everything went very well! I ended up only having one hour of internship on Wednesday instead of two, and in that hour I assigned and outlined a speaking project that would count for a major grade on this term for the students. After the afternoon passed and I once again had my conversation in English with Sara and her mom, I made my way to bed, and Thursday was much the same; four classes in a row basically is still just as exhausting, but I made it through, and before I knew it, it was the evening and I was free for the weekend, which had many grand things in store!

On Friday, the Fundación had offered an excursion to the Ruta del Quijote, a cultural heritage route that contained some of the main landmarks that inspired Miguel de Cervantes to write one of the great masterpieces of the Spanish language, Don Quixote. We saw the famous windmills which the titular character mistakes for giants and into which he charges at full force, we saw a lodge at which Quixote might have stayed, and we saw different pueblos, little towns, that most likely inspired different moments in the epic novel. It was a wonderful experience, and although I had already read a tiny portion of the novel for my Spanish classes in high school, this excursion really made me want to read the whole thing and go for it all!

Architecture that has existed in this town since Miguel de Cervantes' time.

The main square where Don Quixote might have set off from for the first time. 

A watering hole (so to speak) where Don Quixote might have stopped on his journey to rest. 

Playing Don Quixote ourselves.

Flor was BFFs with this Don Quixote. 

The whole group in front of the windmills in another pueblo.

Our last stop was a castle in a different pueblo that was also connected to the story.

View of the valley around the castle. 

And more of the famous windmills for the grand finale. We actually got to learn how they used to function!

Saturday and Sunday were particularly special for me, as one of my plans I had made before even leaving the United States was to visit the city of Avila in Spain, the city where my Confirmation saint, Teresa, was born and spent most of her life. My host mom had happened to find a pilgrimage with a parish from one of the pueblos of Toledo called Argés, and since it was not expensive whatsoever and I had the weekend free anyways, I signed right up! My friend Johanna also decided to come along, since she also had the weekend free and was looking to explore Spain a bit more. After a warning from my host mom that it would be cold in Avila because it’s in the mountains, I finished packing up my things, and we left early in the morning to pick up my friend Johanna as she lives in a part of the city a bit further from us, and there were no buses that early on a Saturday. Soon enough, my host mom dropped us off in Argés, we met the priest who would be accompanying us on the trip, and then we were off!

On the way, we were introduced to everyone, or at least those sitting around or near us, and we said our first prayer together as the sheet was passed around the bus. Around three hours later or so, we made it to Avila, to a lookout point a little ways in front of the city. After snapping a few photos (selfies included), we gathered in the group and said another prayer, as an opener to a day that would be filled with discovery about Saint Teresa. After starting the day off so well, we headed to the first monastery Teresa founded, San José, in the middle of the city’s historic center. We actually had mass there, and at the end, we received scapulars from the religious sisters who live in the monastery to wear and take with us as souvenirs. We then made our way a door over to the museum of Teresa’s life, which contained relics and recreations of what her life would have looked like in the 16th century. It was so interesting to gain such historical insight into her life, and this was only the beginning.

We made it! It ended up being a 3-hour journey. 

The lookout point where we prayed and snapped some photos of the city from a distance. 

The view of the whole city from the lookout point.

The entrance to the city.

St. Teresa's words about the founding of the San José monastery.

After a short break for coffee, we headed to another convent that Teresa had founded, to tour the place a bit, and and then eat our brought-from-home lunches. We heard from a Franciscan who currently lives in the place about the history of the great Saint, and Johanna and I also got a chance to meet some of the people on the trip and share a bit of camaraderie with the priest. We then went to the Cathedral in Avila, which was beautiful as most if not all cathedrals are in Europe. Later in the afternoon, we also prayed a Teresian prayer in a different church. This time it was more like a prayer service than a mass, as I don’t think it’s possible to attend mass more than once a day, but we enjoyed the beauty of the church and the service, complete with songs. Afterwards, we saw where Teresa was born, and also where she’s buried, which were all connected to the church. It was around this point that I was getting pretty noticeably cold, as I was wearing a maxi skirt and it was definitely colder than I expected, and so at dinner that evening, as Johanna and I made some new Spanish friends with the few people of our age that had come on the pilgrimage, one of our new friends offered to lend me some pants of hers, which I ended up greatly appreciating the next day. All in all, the day was spectacular! One thing was amiss though… and that was news from my family about one of our poodles, Toby.

The Cathedral in Avila.

The main part of the church.

A choir book I could fall asleep on, it was so big.

Toby had been sick for a week or so, barely walking around from what I heard from my parents, and so that night, as it was seven hours earlier in the day back home, I heard from my parents that they had decided to put him down, because he was at the point of so much suffering that it would be more merciful that way. I hadn’t been too attentive to my phone during the day, as I had been out exploring Avila with Johanna and the parish, and so when I had gotten back to my room, I had noticed that my mom had sent me a few messages detailing what would be going on. I immediately called my mom, and she was already in tears as she answered the phone. That was the first time I had cried so much in a while… I don’t know how I’m going to feel when I go home to only one little toy poodle instead of both him and his big brother. It was definitely a depressing moment in the weekend. Toward the end of the conversation, my mom mentioned that they would try to make an appointment for Toby on Monday, and so those news will be awaiting me after the weekend. At that point, I just wanted to get to sleep, if only for a momentary escape from what I knew was coming. Finally, my eyes closed, and it was a dreamless sleep.

One of the greatest dogs we've ever had. We love you, Toby.

In the morning, I resolved myself to spend the day trying to immerse myself as much as possible in the culture I was learning about, and so I dug deep and brought out all that I had as far as interest in learning about Teresa and her story. We had breakfast, which was excellent, and then we departed for a pueblo called Alba de Tormes, which is the place where Teresa died. We had mass in a monastery there, and then we visited another museum of Teresa’s life, where we saw more relics and artifacts from her life, and it was just as amazing as seeing the artifacts in the other museum. After lunch in a hotel in the pueblo, we made our way back to Avila to visit one last monastery, where we got to see an actual living convent today of cloistered nuns, and we even got a tour of the public areas. The tour guide was a very nice young lady who told us all about Teresa’s life and the life of the nuns in the convent, and how the nuns here take a vow of stability as well as the three usual ones: once they enter the convent here, they die in this very place. What commitment and certainty in God’s call must that take… my goodness. We eventually learned that our tour guide was actually considering her vocation to religious life, which made perfect sense as to why she worked in the public part of the convent. Finally, we said our last goodbyes after one last prayer in the church of the convent, and we were on our way back to Toledo (Argés), and we shared testimonials of our experience, as well as had a great time in general with the people we had met. We got back to Argés, my host mom picked me up, and we made our way home to prepare for the week ahead.

The very room where Teresa was born.

And the room where she died. 

The saint's remains. Parts of her are in other places, traveling as relics. 

The window through which Teresa and Saint John of the Cross met and talked.

A quote from Teresa. 

A statue in front of the last monastery we visited.

This week has been incredible. I have learned a lot about the saint whose name I chose to take in Confirmation, as well as the patron saint of Ireland, and what it means to lose a pet near and dear to you. I certainly have been thinking very hard about what impact each of these things has on my life, and I’ve just been blown away by Teresa and the loss that I am having a hard time comprehending what it’s all supposed to mean. On the one hand, I’ve certainly gotten used to seeing Toby around the house and snuggling with him, and so that loss will definitely be difficult, but on the other hand, I’ve learned so much about the saint who I chose to have a more personal relationship with through the sacrament that binds me to the Catholic faith, in which I myself chose to confirm that yes I believe in everything the Catholic Church has to offer. Everything I’ve seen this weekend (and, let’s be honest, most if not all of these past few months in Europe) is way older than my entire country - that’s what I reflected about in my testimony on the bus returning to Toledo from Avila; for me, one of the most amazing parts of this entire trip has just been the opportunity to experience such history, that still lives here in these places, up close and in person. What an amazing experience… certainly unforgettable, and one of the deepest impacts I’ve experienced this entire study abroad year.

And with that, I will continue on, to planning my Spring Break and other travel, and also to keeping up with schoolwork and everything else in between. I wish all of you a happy week, and until the next time - ¡Hasta pronto!

Week 28: Southern Spanish flair

What a fast week! Filled with more travel and also more homework, and plenty of everyday adventures in between. It has been a great week in between Toledo and the lovely Spanish cities of Cordoba and Granada, and I’m here to tell you about it all!

Monday morning was a little rushed; Amanda and I were still on our way home from the weekend in Barcelona. We hurried to grab the train back to Toledo, and from there, I practically sprinted home on my way to get to my internship in time. I gulped down some breakfast, blitzed through a quick shower, and then got walking to my internship. Once at my internship, I helped to develop a lesson about mobile phones, in which we would look at various comics in English satirizing the general public’s devotion to their phones, talk about why they were funny, and then initiate a debate about teenagers’ use of mobile phones. I also prepared a St. Patrick’s Day presentation, to show students how the holiday is celebrated in the United States, and then in French class I talked through a “What time is it?” exercise. I had still more to do when I got home, and so after a certain point (which occurred following dinner, of course), I just kind of collapsed into bed from exhaustion.

In fact, on Tuesday I ended up waking up way later than I would have wanted, and so I rushed through getting ready and eating breakfast to be able to make it to school in time for my three classes. After those were done, I had coffee with my French conversation partner again, which went wonderfully as always! Noelia is always a great conversation partner, and she really knows a lot of French for having studied for 3 years. After that, my afternoon was kind of free, except I had as much homework to do as ever… and so I ended up getting at least some things done, and once again I turned in not too late after dinner.

Theology class on Wednesdays is always a treat - as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, you can clearly see how much the professor loves the subject (although it’s not his main field of study). In my internship in the middle, I helped with more writing, and then did the mobile phones lesson with the other class, which worked a little better than the first time on Monday because these kids were older, more mature, and more confident in their English (if only by a sliver). I had a quick chat with Miguel, the student coordinator here in Toledo, about how my internship was going, and of course I said spectacular, because I have truly been having a wonderful time! After that, theology class again, and then finally I had a little bit of free time, before I met up with some classmates and watched an Almodovar movie, What Have I Done to Deserve This?, which is 1 hour and 40 minutes of my life that I will never get back… My goodness. Some people may regard him as a genius, but I really don’t see it.

On Thursday, I had the usual 4 classes, and I was feeling more than a little tense because I wasn’t exactly prepared for all of them. However, the day ended up going just fine, and at the end of classes, I had a new reason to be hurrying: I had to pack for my weekend in Andalusia! I packed up most of my things for the weekend, went to chat with Sara and her mom in English again, and then instead of staying with my host family, since we would be getting up extremely early, they allowed us to stay in the Fundación for the night.

Friday was the start of our great excursion! We ended up leaving at 5:30AM and arriving in Cordoba around 3 hours later. After the comfy and sleepy bus ride, we met our guides just outside the historical part of the city, and then proceeded to the guided tour of the historical city center and the Mezquita. The atmosphere was charming and refreshing, with the white buildings with blue accents, and then we learned a lot about the different parts of the ancient mosque, including how it includes a Roman Catholic church inside, and is a meshing of the two cultures (like many parts of Spain, including Toledo). It was really interesting learning about so much history! As I’ve mentioned before, every so often I just have to stop and marvel at how just about everything I see and hear about in Europe is hundreds of years older than my own entire country.

Where we met our tour guides: just outside the wall of the old city in Cordoba.

Inside the synagogue.

Just after entering the mezquita, looking into the beautiful courtyard.

Architecture typical of the time it was built.

Looking down a main aisle in the mosque.

The Roman Catholic church inside the mosque.

Just one of the incredible ceiling details.

One of the side chapels. 

The altar of the Roman Catholic church.

View from the courtyard of the main tower.

It was a great visit!

A cute photo of me and my friend Lindsay, which also happens to show
typical Cordoba architecture and exterior design.

After the tour, we were given some free time, so some friends and I wandered through the city a bit. We ended up finding some Roman ruins, and of course we got a few silly photos. After discovering the city a little bit more, we headed back to the meeting point, because we were already leaving for our next stop, Granada. We were on that bus for an hour or two more, and then we got dropped off at our hotel - which was a very nice one indeed! We actually had some time to relax at night. There had been the option to go to a Flamenco show, but as I hope to return to Seville and catch a different show of the same type, I declined this opportunity. So, my friends and I had a quiet night in, where we traded sangria and stories to make for a riot of a night.

As we were exploring the city, we found Roman ruins right in the middle!

Saturday was our intensive day, which is to say that we had a good breakfast before touring the Alhambra for the rest of the morning. The tour of the ancient Muslim capital of Spain was really very interesting, as we listened to details about how flowing water was an important part of Muslim culture, and how the geometrically patterned wall tiles reflect the Muslim culture of the time. Once again, the tiniest details fascinated me, and before I knew it, we were over and done with the entire place. We were then free for both lunch and dinner. We chose a pretty nice Italian place for lunch, where we enjoyed the good food and the great conversation, and then we stopped right around the corner for some excellent ice cream (and I also figured out that I like more dessert-y flavors of ice cream rather than fruity ones). After we filled our stomachs to the limit, we went back to our very nice hotel to take a siesta (and once again immerse ourselves in Spanish culture in so doing).

The famous palace itself: La Alhambra. 

Entering into the gardens.

In the Plaza de Toros, or bullfighting ring.

One of the amazing views of the valley as seen from the Alhambra.

Water is a very important part of Islamic architecture (or at least was in that time). 

Detail of the stone carvings in the wall.

Originally, we were supposed to have dinner on our own, but then just before dinner time, our coordinators informed us that we would be having dinner in the hotel, free of charge! That was nice, because it was a great buffet, and we really got our fill of good food. (We found out the next day that it was a mixup and we weren’t supposed to have dinner in the hotel, but it ended up being the hotel’s fault.) So after a good meal, we had more free time, and so on our coordinators’ suggestion, we headed to the Arab baths in Granada. It sounds like a spa place, and it pretty much is; you put on your bathing suit, relax in some swimming pools with water of differing temperatures (although you don’t really relax in the super cold one!), you sit in the steam room, and then you drink some tea and pick out which scent of oil you want for your massage! In case it isn’t absolutely clear yet, my friends and I had an excellent time at the Arab baths - it was so relaxing, and a perfect way to basically wrap up the trip. We went to bed quite late that night, but definitely feeling relaxed and refreshed.

In the morning, we got up with time for breakfast, packed our things, and before we knew it, we were walking to the Cathedral in Granada for Mass. It was inspiring to see how many people from our group went! The entire altar and decorations were made from silver, as this city is apparently known for its silver or has some connection, and the priest gave a great homily extending from the Gospel. After this great mass, we actually made our way to the adjacent market, which had a very Arabic feel, and my friends and I looked over all the wares for sale. I got some nice comfy pants, and then it was time to head back to the hotel for lunch before departure. Before we got back to the hotel, we also shared a last bit of friend time, where we headed to some cafés to try some of the local cuisine and coffee, and then we hurried back to where the bus was waiting. Then we had a 5-hour bus ride to look forward to, and so many of us napped… but my friend Caroline graciously lent me her laptop with her copy of Amélie, which was a movie I enjoyed very much! Not least of which because it was in French :) When we finally got back to Toledo, as it is with every single trip I take, I felt like I was coming down from the clouds - a prosaic feeling, if you will. I said goodbye to my friends, hopped off the bus, and made my way back to my host family’s house, feeling as wonderful as I have after every cultural experience I’ve had here in Spain (and Europe, for that matter).

The start of a parade for the International Day of Women on Sunday!

A feminist group.

Enjoying some last pastries and horchata before we left.

These cultural excursions are such a cool part of this program. This one happened to cost extra and be a whole weekend, but I think it was worth it - I might not have made it to any Southern Spanish cities if not for this experience. I really appreciated having the tour guides along with us, learning about the history of the places, but also having our own time to check out the cities and do what we wanted. Moving forward, Spring Break isn’t too far off on the horizon, and so I’m definitely looking forward to my plans for then - I’ll keep them a secret for now (as they aren’t quite firmed up yet). Until then, I hope you have a great week - ¡Hasta pronto!