Salamanca

*November 7, 2009*

Day trip to Salamanca!

So I was planning on sleeping on the bus, but instead got into a great discussion with Aubrea about our recent stresses thinking about the future. Up until now, life after college has seemed so far away. Even in planning for Spain, I never really thought about life after Spain. Granted, I still have a year and a half of college once I get back, but that really isn't all that much time. This study abroad program has almost made it easy to forget about life at home... since I always feel distracted with traveling and just trying to get a hang on the Spanish language. In a way, I feel like when I get home I'll just want to finish my degree, as this trip has shown me how much more there is to life than just school (which is really all I have known up until now). Then again, I really do love school, and this is my chance to take classes on a huge variety of topics to figure out what I enjoy most, and what I might want to pursue as a career.

I think the only conclusion we came to was to enjoy Spain and our trip now, and I think about everything when we get home, but it is nice to know I am not the only one who is stressed about the impending date of graduation.

Anyway, so we get to Salamanca, and it is FREEZING! It looks like it is going to rain, it's windy, and definitely much much colder than it was back in Valladolid. We had time to go get coffee and such, so a few of us (meaning like 10) wandered into a nearby café.

We definitely tend to take over places when we go to any type of store, café, bar, or business. You would think that they appreciate our business, but we always get looks and stares, and our business doesn't seem to matter to them. The opinions of Americans in Spain is not a positive one, despite our efforts to always speak in Spanish.

After coffee, we met back up with everyone, and walked around the town listening to Alfredo talk about the significance of certain buildings and just touring the city. When we got to the Cathedral, we were given free time to get lunch and wander the city on our own.

It started pouring, so we tried to find a restaurant that would have enough space for all of us to sit and eat our packed lunches from our Madres. McDonald's turned out to be the only one that could fit us all, so some people bought food off of their "1 Euro" menu so we could stay.

We just spent the rest of our time shopping for souvenirs and wandering around town. It finally stopped raining, but it was still so cold that a bunch of us bought "University of Salamanca" sweatshirts for the hood and an extra layer against the wind.

The two things that Salamanca is known for are that it is a college town (hence the University t-shirts and sweatshirts), and frogs. On one of the façades on the Cathedral, there is a tiny tiny frog on top of a skull. It really is tiny in comparison to the huge and detailed façade, but for some reason, every single souvenir shop is filled with different items revolving around frogs.

(Can you find the frog?)

Since it had stopped raining though, our walk back to the Cathedral to meet up with everyone was beautiful... there was this glisten on the cobblestone!

(The Cathedral)

Then, after we toured the Cathedral and walked back outside, we saw this HUGE rainbow! It was so beautiful!

We still had more free time after touring the Cathedral, so a bunch of us found a café/bar that looked like a tavern inside, and just sat, relaxed and talked until it was time to leave.

Not everyone left though... since Salamanca is known for being a college town, a few people just stayed to check out the night life, and took a bus back in the morning. That would have been fun to stay under other circumstances... but it was just too darn cold.

It was a somewhat low key day, but it was perfect to just wander around and shop on our own because of the cold.

Sevilla

*November 1, 2009*

The next morning, we got up early to head back to the bus station to go to Sevilla! It was about a 3-hour bus ride, and we just took taxis again to the hostel... and wow is Sevilla a pretty city. Anyway, we dropped out stuff off at the hostel, made a reservation for a Flamenco show for that night, then left to go explore. Since it was a Sunday, not much was open, but we managed to find a Chinese market that was open, and bought a ton of fruit (which was cheap, too! Most of the fruit that I've found in Valladolid has been pretty expensive). Everyone but Rachel and I went back to take naps and eat, but Rachel and I sat in this little courtyard at a restaurant, where we ordered some chicken tapas that turned out to be curry chicken... delicious!

Later, while everyone else was napping, Hanna, Genelle and I decided to go wandering more, and we came across a Starbucks! I haven't seen a single one since I've been in Spain, so we felt compelled to try it. It was definitely overpriced (3+ euro for a latte, instead of the 1 euro for a café con leche at a café), but we ended up sitting and chatting for a while.

We went back to the hostel a while later, since they were offering a free walking tour of Sevilla. This guy Adam who works as a promoter (and who reminds me of Peter Pan) led us from the hostel to the meeting place, where we met up with a few other hostels for the walking tour.

(the 8 of us before the tour)

Our tour guide (ahh I forget her name now) was actually from Austria, but now lives in Spain. She led us around the old Jewish quarters of Sevilla, then by the Cathedral, and around other monuments and through plazas all around the city, telling us stories and fun facts. The short history of Spain that she told us ended up being a very abbreviated version of everything we've learned in Dr. H's Culture of Spain class (and had just taken a midterm on). I love that we are actively studying Spain's history, because I feel like I get so much more out of touring other cities when I understand the history behind it all. The fun stories our tour guide told us made it more interesting as well.

The tour ended near the bull-fighting arena... we are all so bummed that we are not in Spain during the season when there are bull fights. It's in spring (March-June) and then again in late summer (August - September), so we just missed it.

We did, however, manage to reserve ourselves seats at a flamenco show, which we headed to after the tour. It was AMAZING! It started out with a guitar player and a singer, then came in a woman dancer in a gorgeous blue, white and pick flamenco dress, then another man joined her, and they took the stage at different time as someone played guitar and the woman sang.

(at the show!)

It was a very intimate setting, not what I expected. We were in a little room, and the chairs surrounded this little stage that wasn't more than 6' by 6', and we were only 3 or 4 feet away from the stage, which was just raised a few inches off the ground. It was just a wooden platform meant to better the sound of their shoes.

We left the show in awe... and headed back to our hostel to get ready for the pub crawl. A few of us stopped on the way home at a tapas bar, where we got bocaditos (mini sandwiches) that were cream cheese (which they call Philadelphia) with smoked salmon... a little taste of home.

The pub crawl that night was fun... but I ended up leaving early with Rachel and Genelle since we were exhausted, and we ended up staying up late anyway just telling stories and getting to know each other.

I am so grateful for all of the amazing people that are on this trip. I guess it takes a certain type of person to put themselves out there and do a program like this - we all just seem to get along and can connect in a way I haven't before with other people at Cal Poly. We are starting to feel like a family, and I am really excited to have these new friendships once we are back at home.

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The next day, we slept in a bit, and went down for breakfast at our hostel.

Since everything was closed yesterday, we made today our touring the Cathedral day, so we headed out after we checked out of the hostel and stored our backpacks. Turns out, there was a HUGE line to get into the Cathedral, but it went fast. Tickets for students were super cheap (2 euro, compared to the 8 euro normal entrance fee), which was awesome. This cathedral is also the biggest gothic cathedral in the world, and is famous because they claim to have a casket with a piece of Christopher Columbus (his pinky, apparently - who knows if that is true). So we toured the Cathedral, then went up the tower.

As it turns out, there are no stairs to get to the top of the tower - it is just a slant. In our tour the day before, we learned that this was because 5 times a day, someone had to get to the tope of the tower to ring the bells as a call to prayer. Climbing 40 flights of stairs would be tiring 5 times a day, so they built it slanted so that they could use a horse to get up and down the tower. Poor horse!

The view from the top of the tower was breath taking! Sevilla looks so much bigger from the top of the tower than it felt when walked around last night... and it was such a beautiful city scape.

Since we were in a hurry to catch our bus at 2, we made our way back to the hostel, doing our souvenir shopping and grabbing lunch on the way.

We didn't get back into Valladolid until 10:30 at night, so we all just went home and crashed. Such an eventful weekend :)

Granada

*October 31, 2009*

This weekend we had a three day weekend, so I traveled with 7 other girls: Julie, Kelsey, Jessie, Genelle, Hanna, Rachel and Helena to Granada and Sevilla. Friday night, we took a night bus to Granada. We definitely didn't get much sleep... we had to switch buses in Madrid, where we had an hour and a half layover, then arrived in Granada at 6:30 Sunday morning.

Oh! So you have to hear what happened the night before... so before leaving my apartment in Valladolid, I am packing, and decided to check our hostel website to see what linens they provide. So I go onto hostelworld.om, and search the name of our hostel - nothing comes up. I search for hostels in Granada, and our hostel doesn't exist on the website. I go to the actual hostel's website, and it says unavailable. I look online at other hostel websites... but our hostel isn't there.

At this point, I start to panic a little. I look up the phone number to our hostel from my confirmation email, and call. It just rings and rings... no answer. Then it just disconnects. Now, I have to leave my house to get to the bus station, so I just throw a towel in my backpack and head out. I told all of the girls the situation once we were together, and we just decided that we were going to head to the hostel and check it out when we get there.

Okay, so in the morning, we take taxis to the hostel, ring the doorbell, and a woman answers the door. She tells us something about them having plumbing problems so they can't house us for the night we booked. But, she arranged for all 8 of us to have a bed in another hostel... which happened to be next door.

Phew! We were so relieved. At the hostel next door, the guy told us that what actually is happening is that in the last 48 hours, the police had being going around shutting down all of the hostels in Granada that don't have legit licenses, which turned out to be every hostel in Granada except for two! The one we ended up staying at was one of the two licensed hostels.

What an adventure to start the weekend! It was too early for us to check in, but we stored our luggage, and the guy at the front desk offered us breakfast!

Once we were all ready, we headed out to go see the Alhambra. This is a huge palace and fortress on the top of a hill in Granada overlooking the city. It was the last Arabic fortress to fall to the Christians during the inquisition in Spain, and it is a beautiful example of Moorish art and architecture. It's also massive! We could have easily spend the entire day there, but we just spent time in the gardens and touring the palaces, and taking tons of pictures.

I love that we have learned so much about the Moorish influence in Spain - it was amazing to see all of the intricate art and beautiful architecture in the Alhambra, as well as the view of the city. I don't think that I would have appreciated it as much if I didn't understand the history of it all.

We spent a huge part of the day at the Alhambra, so it was already past lunch time when we walked back down the hill. We found a delicious Turkish restaurant in Plaza Nueva, and sat, relaxed, and ate kabobs and baklava on the patio.

On thing that I have noticed all around Southern Spain, is that we will try to speak in Spanish to the locals, but they will just respond to us in English. I don't know if that's because they have no patience for us, or they think we actually want them to speak in English to us, but it definitely makes me realize the importance of living in Valladolid for the immersion experience... no one speaks English in Castilla y Leon.

We spent the rest of the afternoon shopping for a bit, then visited the huge gothic Cathedral on the way home. You would think that by now, we would all be tired of seeing cathedral after cathedral in every city, but this one was different because the entire interior was white.

This made the center chapel’s façade seem even more massive, since the gold contrasted beautifully with the white. In most cathedrals, the interior is brownish gray – the color of stone, so the gold façades in the chapels tend to blend in. It was definitely an impressive cathedral, which made sense considering it was Philip II who funded it (he was also responsible for the building of El Escorial in San Lorenzo, which we visit back when we were staying in Madrid).

After, we went back to our hotel to actually check into our rooms. Turns out that this hostel didn’t have private rooms, but just a bunch of different dorms. All 8 of us were split into 4 different rooms, where we each had a bed on a bunk bed, then shared a common bathroom with everyone else. It was called a “backpacker’s hostel,” which was a really fun environment. The rooms were set around the side and up stairs, and in the center of the hostel was an open area with a tikki bar, hammocks, and a fort with more hammocks, then a common kitchen and locker area. It was a fun and homey atmosphere, and we stayed, relaxed, napped and chatted with the other guests at the hostel.

For dinner, they made DELICIOUS paella… it had chicken, black beans, red peppers, and was homemade in the stone oven at the hostel.

After dinner, we headed out to go see a view of the Alhambra at night. On the map, it looked like we just had to walk up the street, turn right, and the plaza we wanted to go to was right up the street. Well, since we were in the Albyzin part of town, the streets are not as clear and direct as the map shows, so we managed to get ourselves lost. The Albyzin is the old Moorish part of town, which was actually built before the Alhambra, as well as built into a hill. So not only are the streets hills, but one street will start, then dead-end, and actually continue up and around another corner. So confusing, but we managed to ask for directions to the plaza, and found where we wanted to go.

Once we reached the plaza, we climbed up these stairs, and found a ledge to sit on which overlooked the Alhambra. It was all lit up at night, and we also had a gorgeous view of the entire city. We just stared at the beautiful sea of lights as we looked out over the city, and just enjoyed the view.

We eventually made our way back to the hostel, where some people went to bed, and the rest of us walked back into town to explore. It was getting late, and everything was closed, but we managed to find an open heladeria, so we got gelato and headed back to the hostel to go to bed. A very long but fun day :)

¡fútbol!

*October 29, 2009*

So this past week was a crazy stressful week with midterms, so about twenty of us bought tickets in advance for the Real Valladolid vs. Mallorca fútbol game for thursday night, for after midterms.

Once we were out of class, we headed to the Plaza de España to pick up the bus that would take us to the stadium just outside the city. When we got there, there were MASSES of people heading into the stadium.

When we got inside, we had no idea how to find our seats. When we asked someone, they said you could sit anywhere, so we ended up sitting in the best part of the stadium: where all of the crazy/chanting/creaming/hollering/singing dressed-up fans were. It was so much fun! Some of the chants they sang during the game were familiar tunes... like Yankee Doodle and a few other chants that reminded me of going to college football and basketball games back in the States. We also learned the nick-name for Valladolid - Pulcera (pronounced PUH-THE-RAH) which they chanted a lot... along with a ton of curse words in Spanish towards the other team.

We had such a good time - plus, WE WON!

I'm so glad that we were able to see and experience a fútbol game in Spain, since it is such a huge part of the culture here.

Segovia!

*October 17, 2009*

So the morning after the Diwali party (which was FREEZING), we had to be up early to get on the bus to Segovia... needless to say everyone slept on the bus. But WOW, what an impression Segovia made as we drove into the city... we drove right up to the aqueducts! They are sooo huge, and stretch to connect opposite sides of the city. So incredible!

We had Alfredo as our tour guide again, and I ended up relying on a few other people with the translations. Alfredo is so interesting and animated as a tour guide (and also my Spanish culture teacher), but I can't always understand everything he is saying, which can be frustrating since I am very eager to know what he is explaining about the city.

Anyway, so he took us around talking about the history of Segovia, and then we had free time for lunch, photo taking, and shopping. Since Natalie's dad was in town, I went around with some of the girls and Natalie and her dad. We asked him about his life as a missionary, and we all explained our majors and all that jazz. We walked around the city more (by now, it was warm outside, as opposed to the 2° C that it was that morning) and just enjoyed the view and taking tons of pictures.

When we met back up with the group, we took a tour of the Castle of Alcázar. It was fun recognizing the Moorish architecture and art that we had been learning about in Dr. H's class. We also climbed the many many stairs to the top of the tower, which had a beautiful view!

It was finally time to head back to Valladolid, so we all got some ice cream and boarded the bus (where we slept, again).

That night, we met with everyone again at a bar to watch the Valladolid vs. Madrid fútbol (soccer) game. We didn't stay for long, as Natalie's dad invited us out to dinner (Me, Tiffany, Kristen, Aubrea, Hanna and Rachel). We ended up at this cute (and fanccyyy) restaurant in Plaza Mayor, and had one of the most incredible conversations.

The eight of us were there for about 3+ hours, just deep in conversation, which I won't bore you with now... but I do want to pose a question for you to ponder which we did discuss:

If you had 15 minutes to speak to the entire world, what would you say?

I would love to hear your thoughts - please feel free to send me an email at dalia.feinholz@gmail.com :)

Diwali in Spain

*October 16, 2009*

Our adventures this weekend started off amazing, as we were invited by an Indian student, Abhi, who is in our Spanish classes, to celebrate Diwali on Friday at the Casa de India in Valladolid. He actually works at the Casa de India, and was a part of putting on all of the programs that go on that try to blend both Indian and Spanish cultures.

Anyway, when we got to the celebration that night, Abhi, who was dressed in a traditional Indian robe, came over and put red bindis on us (in case you are wondering why we have red dots on our foreheads in the pictures).

There was music, dancing, a guy playing some sort of string instrument...

It was all amazing! There were more than just us Cal Poly kids dancing too, which was fun for a change. Abhi also taught us some Indian moves and the lyrics to some of the songs that were played.

I never expected to experience Indian culture while in Spain, and it was amazing to celebrate with everyone else. Definitely a fun night!