The Marathon: Malaga II

Of course, it started to rain while we were landing in Malaga. The marathon was kicking us while we were down again. One of the reasons we were going to stay in Malaga an extra night was to see the processiones. Spain is an incredibly catholic country, and the influence can be seen pretty strongly during Semana Santa (“Holy Week”), the week preceding Día de la Resurreción (Easter). They have huge processions of Catholic imagery and parades of people in repentance and celebration of the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ. It’s really fascinating, you should Google image them and check out what they look like. It’s a lot of fanfare and can sometimes be more about who’s Church or brotherhood had the most money and the best procession, and not the religion itself (there are A LOT of people, though, who do take it to have a religious significance). My point is that the processiones do not proceed if it’s raining. The images are extraordinarily heavy and huge; it’s dangerous for them to proceed when it’s raining. When we got to the hostel they had confirmed that some of them had been cancelled earlier in the week because of the rain.

We just went to the grocery store to buy some food and made pasta in the hostel kitchen, hoping that the rain would let off and it would become dry enough for them to proceed. We showered and crawled into bed. Sona, Maya, and I were in a 8 person room and Conrad and Jake were in a separate 6 person room. The three of us passed out early, and never even heard our roommates come home. We never did make it out to see the processiones, which apparently did end up happening that night. A couple of them were able to proceed that evening, but not all of them. Jake and Conrad went to see them, but the three girls were passed out early. We were absolutely drained from the journey.

We started off the next day with a trip to the Museo Picasso Malaga. Picasso was born in Malaga and his daughter-in-law and grandson donated a large collection of his works to the city of Malaga to create a museum. We were lucky and got in for free with out Euro under 26 cards. Once again we saw the German influence on Malaga, the museum guides were in Spanish, English, and German. The museum itself was actually pretty cool too. There were a ton of “I’m pretty sure I could have drawn that at 5” paintings and other Picasso works. He was one of the most influential artists of the 20^th century, and some of the artwork was truly unique. I had already seen Guernica in the Reina Sofia, and it was interesting to see more of his work.

I really like one of the quotes we saw on the walls. Picasso referenced a Spanish saying: “Obras son amores y no buenas razones. Lo que cuenta es lo que se hace y no lo que se tenia la intencion de hacer.” It basically translates to: Love is deeds, not good reasons. What counts is what you do, not what you have the intention to do.

We walked along the beach a little afterwards to kill sometime before our train left at 6:20. It was actually pretty dirty and not the nicest beach. Us Californians are quite the beach critiques, but it truly wasn’t a fantastic beach. It was, however, nice to finally be at a beach again (even it did have a bunch of Germans trying to tan on it).

A 55 minute train ride that afternoon and I was finally back to Córdoba. My piso (apartment) has never felt more home-like and comforting as it did when I first sat on my bed Saturday afternoon. I was finally going to be able to sleep in a room alone and not wonder whether or not the sheets were truly clean or if I was going to miss a flight in the morning…

Makes me kind of ready for the same feeling when I get back to California.

The Marathon: Train Hopping

We were to take a train to Berlin that would arrive around 12:23 in the evening in Berlin. We were going to store our things in the train stations by the airport where we were to arrive and then spend the evening in Berlin, before taking our early morning Ryanair flight from Berlin back to Malaga. The entire time we were in the Heineken factory we couldn’t remember what time our train tickets were for. Maya and Sona had left our tickets in our lockers at the train station, so we were unable to check them during the day. No one could remember, we thought 2:30, 4:30, 5, 5:45, or 6:45. We started on our trek across Amsterdam (the factory was about a 30 minute walk from the station) making as few stops as possible. We went in a McDonalds to grab food to eat on the train and stopped quickly in a souvenir shop for postcards and things. When we got to the train station, Maya, Jake and Sona went to our lockers to get our things and I went to the bathroom. When I came out I saw them all completely distressed. It was 5:19 and our tickets said 5:21. We sprinted back and forth through the station looking for the train to Hilversum, and eventually we asked someone at information. He said there was one leaving in 3 minutes, at 5:26, from platform 10b. We raced over there and hopped on the train.

I took a closer look at our ticket (which was all in German) and tried to figure out what it said. At the top it said Amsterdam Centraal – Berlin Flügensomethingorother and at the bottom it had two directions: 5:21 Hilversum-Wolfsburg and 22:00 Wolfsburg – Berlin. I realized it first, we were meant to be on a train leaving Hilversum at 5:21, not arriving in Hilversum at 5:41 (which the train we were on was scheduled to do). This was when it hit us, we had missed our train and we were on the wrong train. We were officially lost in a foreign country. We asked a nice looking Dutch guy about where our train was headed, and he said Amersooft, and the next stop was Hilversum. We told him we were headed to Berlin and showed him our ticket. He confirmed our fears, we had missed our train, and then offered us advice on how to get to Berlin. He said that direct trains to Berlin frequently left from Amersooft, and there was usually one at 8. We thanked him perfusely and he got off on that stop with us, instead of Hilversum as we intended. He walked us to the information desk and made sure we were okay. It was another fine example of friendly Europeans helping us out.

When we got up to the lady at the information desk, we told her we had a problem. We had missed out train to Berlin and we showed her our tickets. She looked into her system for trains to Berlin, and said the next one didn’t leave until the next morning. We were devastated. Sona looked like the world had ended. This was when we truly thought we were not going to make our flight, that we would be stuck in this random train station in the middle of the Netherlands with no concrete way to make it back to Germany, let alone Spain. She told us that our best bet was to head to Hengelo, the last Dutch town before the border, and hope that their computer systems could find us a way to Berlin, because she couldn’t see trains past the border. We asked her if we needed to buy tickets for the train, and she just kind of shrugged at us and said something along the lines of don’t ask don’t tell. She was going to pretend she didn’t know our tickets weren’t technically valid. Such is the Dutch way I guess.

We sat in the station for 45 minutes before catching the train to Hengelo. It was about an hour train ride to Hengelo, and about halfway through a man came through checking tickets. I thought, here it is, were going to get caught without a ticket and were would be heavily fined and kicked off the train in some obscure Dutch city. When he got to me I sheepishly handed him my ticket and smiled. All he said to me was that I had a second-class ticket and needed to switch out of the first class cabin at the next stop. I absolutely love the Dutch. Sona, Jake, Maya, and I moved over at the next stop, thrilled to still be allowed on the train. Tickets got checked one more time on that journey, and we were even more overjoyed to make it through round 2 without fines or being ejected.

The train we had been on had internet, so I had been keeping Andrew updated on what had been happening, and when we got to Hengelo, I lost internet. The last thing Andrew heard from me for about 12 hours (when I got to the hostel in Malaga) was that I was arriving in some random Dutch city with far off hopes of reaching Berlin in time. I still feel bad for leaving him hanging like that. I bet my parents are pretty happy I didn’t worry them like that too…

When we arrived in Hengelo we went straight to the information kiosk and asked the woman how to get to Berlin. She asked us when, and we said as soon as possible. She just looked at us like we were nuts and then did some typing on her computer. She stoically wrote some things down and then typed some more. Then she handed us a plan with three train changes and a final arrival time in Berlin of 4:49. She wished us luck and looked at us like we were crazy for doing this. We were going to get to Berlin 4 hours later than originally planned, but we were so excited that it looked like we were going to get to Berlin on time, we finally had a plan. We didn’t allow ourselves to celebrate yet, there were too many things that could still go wrong (for example, our tickets were still not valid and we could easily miss a train) but a weight was still lifted off my shoulders.

After another hour or so wait we caught our 20 minute train to Bad Benthiem, the German town just across the border. We didn’t get our tickets checked on this one either, and we actually had no idea when we really did cross the border. That actually was probably one of the greatest gifts of the Shengen Pact, we didn’t have to get our passports or documents checked crossing the border (which was a negative when we realized early we wouldn’t get any passport stamps from these cool countries, which is the whole point of traveling, right? Stamps?) .

When we got to Bad Bentheim we had a 45-minute wait for our train to Blithefeld. While I was waiting, I got a papercut writing a postcard. The marathon was just kicking me while I was down. I was tired, disoriented, and in a foreign country, and now my finger was bleeding. More importantly though, this train ride went smoothly as well. It was around two hours. About halfway through the ride, the lady came through checking tickets. I had fallen asleep, and when everyone woke me up to show her mine, I kind of aimlessly handed it to her. She looked at it and just handed it back. We made it through round 3 with our invalid tickets and were just as happy as we were the first time. The entire ride I was actually a little worried we would miss our stop because we were all falling asleep. It ended up not being a problem and we got off at Blithefeld.

When we got to the station, the first thing we did was look for the location of our next train, which was leaving at 00:23. All we could find for that time was an overnight train leaving for Warsaw. There wasn’t one leaving for Berlin until 3:30. We started to get a little worried around midnight and went to the platform of the Warsaw train to look around. We found the plan for the train and discovered that the train split partway through the journey. One coach was headed to Amsterdaam, two were headed to Warsaw (continuing to Moscow), and the last two were headed to Prague. Apparently last two were stopping in Berlin at 4:49 on the way to Prague. When the train arrived, we hopped into the D coach and discovered that there were no seats, only cabins with beds. Uh oh. We walked down to Cabin E and then back to D not finding anywhere to sit. Jake went up to a woman working on the train and asked he how to get to Berlin. She told us our tickets weren’t valid for this train, but led us up to the first cabin and told us to find seats (these had cabins of 6 seats instead of beds). Sona and I found seats in one cabin and Jake and Maya found seats in another. I was freaking out. Berlin Hbf was listed on the windows of coaches D & E but not on the window of ours, A. I was so scared that we were going to end up back at Amsterdam. I got off the train at the stop where they were detaching the coaches and double checked with the lady that we got to Berlin at around 4:30. I came back and made Sona anxious too, and she doubled checked with her shortly after that our coach was headed to Berlin. I slept for maybe an hour and a half on the 4 hour ride because I was so anxious. It was like I could not believe that we were actually going to make it to Berlin on time, especially without paying a dime extra. I thought for sure that something else HAD to go wrong, that there was no way we could be that lucky.

Apparently we were that lucky and at 5:15 we arrived at Berlin Hauphbenhauf. We bought our 3€ ABC metro tickets and navigated the metro to the airport (watching the sun rise for the 3^rd time this trip). This time of night/morning was a strange time to be on the metro. Most of the people on it were wasted because they were on their way home from partying, were certifiably crazy, or homeless. It was an interesting metro trip. Eventually we made it to the airport. Surprisingly, we made it to the airport too early to even go through security; we were there three hours before our flight left. We sat in a café and wrote some postcards before heading through security and waiting some more before they posted the gate number. We boarded our flight with ease and were eventually on our way to Malaga. We got to our hostel around 3:30pm thrilled to finally be there, but too exhausted from the traveling to even conceive of celebrating.

Another thing that was extremely lucky for us was the level of English in all of the Northern European countries we visited. Nearly everyone spoke English and most spoke it with a proficiency that I know I could never achieve in Spanish, not matter how long I studied it. We are so lucky that them women at the kiosks, the Danish guy, and the lady on the train in Germany spoke English; otherwise we may never have made it to Berlin. Let alone every other encounter in these foreign countries. Living in a country where they don’t speak my native language has been difficult, with a lot of miscommunications, but my travels this break has made me really appreciate the level of Spanish I do have. At least here, when I look at the menu, I have some idea of what I’m ordering. In Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands, we had to just hope or assume they spoke English. They usually did too, with perfect fluency.

The Marathon: Amsterdam

We arrived in Amsterdam around 10pm, and the city was bustling. There were people everywhere. One of the things we noticed about Amsterdam, right from the start, was that there were more tourists than anything else. We could hardly tell who was a tourist and who wasn’t. It was a lot harder to get a feel for tourist culture vs. the local culture. I suppose with Amsterdam they’re too integrated to feel the difference.

We checked into our hostel, Hostel Cosmos, once we finally found it. It was off a couple side streets and had a small sign above the door. It was tiny little family run place with a couple rooms. There were four rooms on two floors with anywhere from 4-9 beds. For the first night we all stayed in the same four-person room and then the following night Jake had to stay in a 6 person room and the three girls stayed in a 9-person room. It was teeny tiny and super compact. The stairs were incredibly skinny and steep. They had some of the comfiest beds that we slept in but the bathroom felt like an airplane bathroom.

We just got some French fries and went to bed (exhausted after the travel to and from the airports, as well as the flight itself). There were French fry stands EVERYWHERE and they all had dozens of sauce options to chose from. We ended up eating way to many French fries this trip than necessary. Amsterdam, for obvious reasons, has a lot of munchie fast food style food stands. The most common were these French fry stands, and they were all so tasty and were steak cut style. For about 3€ Maya, Sona, and I would split a large French fry with ketchup.

We woke up decently early to take a free 3-hour walking tour of the city (aka tips based). Our tour guide was a cool Sweedish man who had gone to university in the states and moved to Amsterdam just over a year ago. He clearly loved this city. One of the first things he told us was “if you find yourself bored in Amsterdam, there is something wrong with YOU, not with Amsterdam.” The first question he asked us was “What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think about Amsterdam?” The most popular responses were “weed” and “prostitutes.” Just to play a devil’s advocate of sorts, someone said the architecture. The point of his tour was to give us a different view of the city, to teach us a little bit of the city’s history and the citizens values. He emphasized the city’s tolerance a lot, and expressed it through their allowance of weed (although illegal) as well as the February strike in favor of the Jewish community during WWII. He also talked to us about the “Dutch way of doing things.” The first example he gave of this was the odd structure of most of the buildings, they all leaned pretty far forward. The reason behind this was that because the city was on the water, all goods had to be stored in the attic instead of the basement, because of all the flooding. The staircases are all incredibly narrow, so they used to use a pulley system to pull the packages up to the attic from the front of the houses. In order to keep the packages from scraping the buildings, they built them to tilt. He said it would have been easier to just have the pulleys hang further out from the house, but such is the dutch way. The other example he gave took place right after the Netherlands became an officially protestant country, thereby making Catholicism illegal. One particular group of Catholics, about 400, continued to meet in a normal building. All of the Amsterdamers could hear the mass every Sunday, and reported it to the police. The officers said they don’t work on Sundays, so when they went to investigate on Monday, they never heard anything. This was the Dutch way, to tolerate the Catholicism, even though it was technically illegal. He said the Dutch really care for three things: discretion, if it doesn’t hurt anyone, and if its good for business. He applied this to the weed sale. Technically the sale of marijuana is illegal in Amsterdam, but as long as its discrete (all those establishments say “coffeeshop,” not advertising marijuana), it doesn’t hurt anyone (you can’t technically overdose on marijuana and die, like you can with alcohol), and its good for business (clearly, by all the tourists) they let it continue. The same thing applied to the Catholics, they were discrete, they weren’t hurting anyone, and persecuting the Catholic merchants would just drive away business.

Buddiest temple -1999

We ended the tour in an open plaza out front of a church. He told us how this was the church from which Anne Frank heard the bells every Sunday while hiding in the secret Annex. Here he told us how, once the non-Jews of Amsterdam hear about the deportations of the Jewish community, the people of Amsterdam organized a protest. During the February strike, thousands of Amsterdamers marched through the city protesting the treatment of the Jews. Trams and buses didn’t run and business stopped for days. Eventually the strike was crushed and the deportations increased in speed as a result, but it showed that the Amsterdamers at least stood up for their Jewish neighbors. The other interesting this in this square was the homomonument. It was dedicated to all the homosexuals who have been persecuted and discriminated against through history. It specifically focused on during the holocaust, as most monuments and memorials are dedicated specifically to the Jewish population and not the other groups who were targeted, like the Roma, gypsy, and homosexual populations. It was another example he gave of the city’s famous tolerance.

After his tour we stopped and got some food before paddle boating. We had no idea where the paddle boating rentals took place, so we crossed the city to Amsertdam Centraal station to find a rental locations. They then directed us to the other side of the city to their rental location. By the time that we found them, they had closed about 10 minutes earlier. After an hour and a half of walking, we ended our fruitless quest. All the walking did help me to appreciate the city. Amsterdam has the most canals of any European city (even Venice) and it made the city gorgeous. It always retained a lot of its old architecture. All the buildings were really tall and really skinny. It was definitely the most beautiful city we saw on this trip.

After our failed quest, we just went to a Pancake Bakery next to the Anne Frank Huis to get some famous Dutch pancakes. I got a delicious banana pancake that was huge and covered with cinnamon and powdered sugar. It was absolutely heavenly, I was so happy to eat it. During this whole trip, in each city, someone has been obsessed with trying a certain type of food. In Germany, all Sona wanted to do was try a sausage. In Denmark, all Jake wanted was a Danish. In Amsterdam, I wanted pancakes. Sure enough, first time we had a sit down meal, I dragged us across the city to a pancake place (we were headed to Anne Frank’s house anyways…).

Our next stop was the Anne Frank museum. At one time, the secret annex and the warehouse were going to be sold and demolished by a developer, but the people protested and the city bought the building and it’s neighbor. They preserved the building as it was and had her diary on display. Their living space was absolutely tiny and it was incredible that they all lived in the small annex for years. The museum part also told the stories of each of the habitants of the secret annex and their fates. Only Otto Frank (Anne’s father) survived the war, and he published Anne’s diary so that they world could know what it was like for a Jew during the war. Anne’s dream was to become a writer, and it’s a tragedy that only through her death did she become a famous published author. They never did discover who revealed their location to the secret police.

We ended up getting French fries for dinner (don’t judge) and then headed home. We just hang out for a little before going to sleep. We woke up early the next morning to head to the Van Gogh museum. When we got there, there was a huge line. We waited for almost an hour and a half, taking turns to run to bakeries or food stands for breakfast foods. When we got to the front we discovered it was 14€, which was ridiculous and there was no student discount. We had waited for so long and wanted to see Sunflowers, so we just ate the cost. The museum had around 200 of his works, as well as drawings and other things. They also had a temporary exhibition, called Picasso in Paris, and it was neat to see that too. Picasso and Van Gogh had been contemporaries, so it was nice to see their work together like that.

Then we went to the Heineken Experience, which was very similar to the Guinness factory in Dublin. There was a simulation where we were beer being made and there were lessons on how to properly pour the beer from a tap and drink it correctly. This was out last stop before we had to catch our train to Berlin. This train trip was an adventure in it’s own right…

The Marathon: Copenhagen

Arriving in Copenhagen we saw the second sunrise of the trip (2 too many if you ask me). As soon as we arrived in Copenhagen we had to deal with the next of our great challenges, currency exchange. Denmark has staunchly avoided converting to the Euro, and that left us in a pickle. We had already converted our dollars to Euros (paying an exchange rate) and then we had to convert them again into krons at the airport. I felt like I could see the money just dripping out of my bank account every time we had to purchase something. The coins were pretty cool; they kind of looked like fake money. Copenhagen is already a decently expensive city, without us having to double convert our money.

After dealing with converting, we took the metro (another weird honor system situation) to our hostel, called Sleep in Heaven. Needless to say, there were plenty of jokes about how it was nothing like sleeping in heaven. Especially after we had to pay some absurd amount like 7€ to rent sheets… Copenhagen was actually a really pretty city, and I’m glad Sona pushed for us to add it to our trip. Our first tourist destination was the graveyard with the graves of Hans Christian Anderson (writer of famous fairytales) and Kierkegaard. While we were looking for H. C. Anderson’s grave, an Old Danish man approached us and asked if he could help direct us. He asked us if we knew anything about Denmark, and we kind of shrugged and said “No, that’s why were here.” He started with “Well, the first thing you need to know about Denmark is that we have 4% unemployment.” He also said “We also have really good welfare, the government will pay you to sit around on your couch for 2 years.” He reassured us that they were not communist, and definitely a democracy, somehow implying that the US wasn’t. He managed to make us feel incredibly guilty about not knowing that much about Denmark and only speaking English and some Spanish. He told us about Denmark’s 2 UNESCO world heritage sites, Kronborg Castle in Helsingr and another one site near a Viking museum. Eventually he let us go with the advice to not walk around like a bunch of Americans, hurrying and taking pictures of everything, but to slow down and enjoy everything; to walk slowly through the graveyard and take it all in.

After that encounter of the Danish kind, fresh with the knowledge of how to say good-bye (“favel”) and thank you (“tak”) in Danish, we headed to the center of the city. We crossed a bridge over a beautiful river full of swans. We stopped there to eat our snacks from the grocery store, bread and cheese. What can I say? I always travel in the lap of luxury, and I spare no expense.  Sona directed us to the Rundetaarn (the round tower). It is one of the tallest buildings in Copenhagen and has Europe’s oldest observatory at the top. The round tower has not elevator, so Sona and I climbed the winding, whitewashed spiral walk (aka no stairs). Jake and Maya were exhausted from travel and waited for us at the bottom. We were able to see amazing views of the city.

Afterwards Sona, Maya, and I overpaid for a sandwich and a salad, and then the 4 of us headed back to Sleep in Heaven for another nice siesta. We slept soundly until 5pm, when we headed out again. Sona and Jake had both gotten tips of things to see from friends who had lived in Copenhagen, and both of them suggested we go see the anarchist community of Christiana. It is a small part of town where cars are not allowed (there are 14 parking spots for 800+ residents) and the people generally chose not to pay taxes. It was a weird mix of toontown and Telegraph Ave with huge signs everywhere banning you from taking photos. The community’s only rules are no photos, no fighting, and not hard drugs. It was an interesting part of town to walk through, but we didn’t stick around long.

We stopped at a pizza place for dinner and then ate it at Nyhaven (“Newport” in Danish) along the dock. We saw a beautiful sunset and enjoyed it with some delicious pizza. So delicious that Maya and I had to go back and order another one to split. One quick stop at a bar to try a glass of Danish beer, (when in Denmark, right?) and we went to bed. We were still exhausted from travel and were all asleep by 10.

The next day we were up early to do something I never thought I’d be able to say I’ve done, we were up early to follow the advice of a man in a graveyard. We took an hour train up to Helsingr to see the famous Kronborg Castle. We never would have thought to gone if graveyard man hadn’t suggested it to us, and I’m really glad he did. It was a beautiful castle right on the coast of Denmark; you could clearly see Sweden across the sea. It is the famous castle of Elsinore from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It was absolutely stunning and definitely deserved to be a heritage site. We spent hours there looking at it before it was time to head back to the airport.

Once again we took on budget travel and took a Norwegian airlines flight from Copenhagen to Amsterdam. Interesting to note was that no one in the airport, neither airport security nor the airline, checked the id for my boarding pass. I could have had a ticket for “Jane Doe” instead of “Brooke Weisenberger” and no one would have been the wiser. Not the most comforting of thoughts.

The Marathon: Berlin

In order to get to Berlin, we had to take a 3-hour Ryanair flight that left at 6:30am, so, if you’ve ever been on a Ryanair flight, you know it was a fantastic start. If you haven’t you should know that Ryanair has a one carry-on limit (including purses or briefcases) and it is a lot smaller than your normal American sized carry-on (think backpack sized). One of my greatest achievements this trip was making the entire trip with just my Jansport backpack. That’s right, I did an entire 9-day Spring Break trip with just a backpack full of things. We were going to have to take 4 flights with similar one carry-on luggage requirements and I simply did not have the funding to pay 15€ for each flight just for a bag. I did not need extra clothes $85 worth, no way. I hope I never have to achieve such a feat ever again. Going through security has never been so stressful when you need to make everything you own fit in to one bag right before you go through.

Well, we arrived in Berlin around 10am and the next challenge we had to face was figuring out the Berlin metro system. Later we discovered it to be incredibly efficient and useful, but at first glance, it was the most confusing metro system I had ever seen. There was an S-bahn and a U-bahn. One ran aboveground and the other ran underground; they intersected at some stations. We had to buy ABC zone tickets for 3€ for the journey to the hostel. We were really confused for a while, because we didn’t know what to do with our tickets. You didn’t have to go through automated stalls to get on and off the train (like BART or the Madrid metro) and no one was checking tickets on the train. We discovered after that the Berlin metro runs on an honor system. They just expect you to buy tickets and they rarely check. Its only a 40€ fine if you get caught without a ticket during the sporadic times that someone actually walks through the train to check tickets. We rode the metro many times and only had our tickets checked once. Only in Germany could the metro run on an honor system…

After about 45 minutes and 3 train changes, we made it to our stop, Rosenthaler Platz (one of the few stops we could even come close to pronouncing). We got off and could not for the life of us figure out where our street was. We wandered around a busy street corner until some random 70year old German lady approached us and offered us help. She spoke little to no English so we just showed her the street name. She pointed to the street we were on and looked at us like we were crazy. We turned around and could actually see our hostel. We were so exhausted from our crazy travel schedule that we couldn’t see it when it was right in front of us. It had a pretty large sign, it was quite clear Circus Hostel was right there…

We checked-in at reception with a nice German guy, Marion. The reservation was under my name and he asked me if my family was German (Weisenberger being super German, almost as German as my mom’s maiden name, Meyer). I told him that we’re German many generations back and now all the German I speak is counting to 10. I did ask him what my last name meant in German. “Berg” means hill and the “Weisen” part means something along the lines of wise man, or wise old man. Our 8-bed room wasn’t ready yet, so we checked our bags into lockers and began to explore the city.

Our first stop was the Brandenburg gate. It’s essentially the Champ-Elysse of Berlin and used to be the old entrance into the city. It’s the site of many famous Hitler-era marches and was once right alongside the Berlin wall. An interesting side fact is that the US embassy is located right next to the Brandenburg gate. Maya went up to the guard and asked if she could look inside. He sternly told her no, but she could look in. She protested that she was an American and could show her passport, but he still said no. We were a little surprised by the irony of a German national telling US citizens they couldn’t enter their own embassy, but such is life. We just took pictures in front of the sign out front instead. We then wandered over to the nearby Reichstag. It is the seat of the German government. It is a huge, imposing building that was really cool to see.

At this point we are absolutely exhausted and starving, so we decide to get some food and then enjoy one of our favorite Spanish pastimes, the siesta. For lunch the obvious option was Dolores. Dolores was a place we had heard of a long-time ago and was our main food goal for the trip. Dolores is a California-style burrito place. All of us have been craving Mexican food like crazy and the one time we tried a Mexican place in Córdoba it was a disaster, the food did not resemble Mexican food at all. Several Californians had vouched for Dolores as the best burrito place in all of Berlin. We were determined to try it while in Germany. You order Chipotle style there, picking burrito, then meat, then rice type, etc. I got myself a chicken burrito with chipotle sauce. The fire ratings were off, chipotle sauce did not deserve to have 3 flames out of 4 for hotness. Psh. It would be lucky to deserve 2, but Europeans just do not seems to have the same sense for spicy and hot as the rest of us. When we went back a second time a day later, I got the habanero sauce, the hottest with 4 flames, and at least deserved the title of “kind of spicy.” After Dolores I think I may have staved off my Mexican food cravings to a bearable level until I return to California. May have.

Post-siesta (and it was a long siesta) we showered and got ready to take on Berlin at night. We went to a random restaurant and got some pretty good burgers and fries as well as our first German beers. We couldn’t pronounce the name of it to save our life, but we all enjoyed them. When in Rome, do as the Romans, right? When in Germany, drink beer.

We started out the next day early and took the Regional Express train to a town just outside the city called Oranienburg, the location of the concentration camp Sachsenhausen. We were there for a couple hours and it was a chilling experience. It was surreal to see the walls around the camp and the old barracks. There was even building Z, where the cremations took place, and ironic name using the last letter of the alphabet for the prisoner’s last stop. It was a trip that made me nauseous and depressed, but it was something that people need. Humanity’s capacity for horrendous acts of violence has been demonstrated throughout history, from the Spanish inquisition to this concentration camp, which the soviets took over after the war and continued to use it for similar purposes. The most moving parts were the personal stories that we heard on out audio guides, of grueling roll calls and vicious commandants.

Our third day in Berlin started off at the Memorial to the Murdered European Jews and Information Center. What can we say, we like to start our days on a happy note. The memorial is difficult to explain, it is a huge squared with many large concrete stones of differing heights, which are reminiscent of coffins. They are unmarked, to imply that we can never know the real number of murdered Jews as well as never know every person’s name. The information center was also very moving, and had more heart wrenching personal testimonies from holocaust victims and survivors.

Afterwards we headed to one of the most iconic sites in Berlin, the East Side Gallery. It is the largest preserved stretch of the Berlin wall that has been painted on by many different artists. There were some artistic ones that I didn’t understand, and some pretty ones as well. One of my favorite quotes on it said “I painted over the wall of shame so freedom is ashamed no more, inferno ruled too many years, until the people chose the light. I put my faith in you, Berlin, and give to you my colours bright!” –Fulvio Pinna, Italy. It was really hard to look and it and conceive life as a West Berliner, constantly surrounded by these walls. Sona, Maya, and I did what we do best: we took lots of pictures.

Next we wandered to Museum Island, to check out the cool buildings (we were saving museum time for Van Gogh and Picasso). The Berlinner Dom building was gorgeous, and so were some of the museum buildings. We didn’t spend that much time there because we had an early date with the Berlin-Schöenfeld airport the next morning around 7:10am. We woke up at 4:45am Monday morning and were off to our next city!

The Marathon: Malaga

Sona, Jake, Maya, and myself nicknamed our Semana Santa (Spring Break) trip “The Marathon.” We were to have a whirlwind trip across Northern Europe: Berlin, Copenhagen, and Amsterdam in nine days, flying in and out of Berlin from Malaga. It was to be a feat of European travel, 4 flights (2 Ryanair, 1 EasyJet, and 1 Norwegian) and 3 train rides. We knew it would be a stressful but fun filled adventure, so we were excited to get started Thursday after our literature exam.

We had to fly in and out of Malaga, a city on the Mediterranean coast of Spain (Costa del Sol), because Córdoba, for all intents and purposes, does not have an airport. Ryanair, being the accommodating airline that it is, changed our flight out of Malaga to 6:30am on Friday morning. It made the most sense to stay a night in a hostel in Malaga the night before, so we could at least be a little more refreshed than taking a train that gets into Malaga at like 2am and bumming it in the airport for a couple of hours. Regardless, we had to wake up at 3:30 in the morning to catch a couple taxis and make it to the airport on time.

We had heard a lot about the city of Malaga from our history teacher, Antonio. He had told us that Malaga was an incredibly touristy city full of Alemans (Germans) vacationing at the beach. He set our standards pretty low for the city, so we were pleasantly surprised to find the city quite pretty, although a little touristy. We did also see a lot of blond-haired Germans there. When we were in the airport, all the signs were in Spanish/English/German, which is not the norm. Most countries have signs in their native language and English. It was a true testament to the large amount of Germans that come to the Costa del Sol every year.

We didn’t really see much of Malaga that day, just a stop at a frozen yogurt place for a snack. Our host families had made us bocadillos (sandwiches) and we sat on our hostel’s terrace to eat them. The terrace had a beautiful view of the nearby cathedral. All in all, Malaga was a nice little rest before we started to run the marathon.

Comidaaaaaa

If you’ve EVER eaten with me, you know this is a favorite topic of mine. I love to eat, and I eat a lot. I will personally confess to deserving to weigh at least 100lbs more than I do. I have been known to eat a breakfast burrito at 10am and turn around and eat a California burrito at 11am (which are not, by any definition of the word, small). Here in Spain I’ve have had to completely change what and how I eat. I’m not just talking about eating at their weird times (they eat lunch 2-3 and dinner 9-11). I regularly eat dinner from 10:30-11. I’m talking about my proportions and the types of food I eat. I always try to stick with just the food that’s served to me, a normal person sized portion and generally healthier than what I normally eat (minus the olive oil factor). The food here is really different, even pasta. Today I had spaghetti for dinner. We all know the pasta we eat is “Americanized,” but I love my Americanized pasta. When Mari Carmen or Antonio (my Spanish host parents) make spaghetti it’s yummy, but it’s not what I’m used to, its “Spanishized”. My sauce looks a little more orange than I’m used to. Also, I eat a lot of eggs. I frequently have a dish for dinner that is just a fried egg over rice or a fried egg on peas. Which leads me to another difference, my Spanish family eats a lot of veggies. Some of you may not believe me, but one day for dinner I had mushrooms for dinner. Yes. You read that right; I had mushrooms for dinner. I also eat the green beans inside my garbanzo bean soup thing my padres make for me. There is one thing, however, that all of us American students have agreed upon: the Spanish (especially in Andalucía) use a lot of olive oil. There is olive oil in everything, and if there isn’t any olive oil in the dish, they’ll pour some on top. When we were writing metaphors in literature class, we wrote one that basically translated to “olive oil is as plentiful as the clouds in the sky.”

Here are a couple foods I’ve tried:

Croquettes – It’s pretty much fried goodness that usually has ham inside. It’s basically a breaded cream with pieces of ham that’s fried. They kind of look like oddly shaped fried mozzarella sticks (but that is not at all what they taste like). I wasn’t a terribly big fan of them they first time I tried them, but they’ve really grown on me and I like them a lot.

Tortilla – Forget everything you know about what a tortilla is, here a tortilla is an omelet. A fairly common food here, especially as a tapa, is tortilla de patatas (basically an omelet of egg and potatoes cooked in olive oil). In Madrid Andrew and I got a Tosta (basically means it was on toasted bread) of Tortilla de Patatas con Ali-oli sauce and caramelized onions that was DELICIOUS. The best tortilla de patatas is at a place called Bar Santos right next to the mezquita. Imagine eating a bocadilla de tortilla de patatas (basically a baguette with a potato omelet in it) on the steps of the Mezquita. Andrew and I certainly felt pretty internationally cool at that moment.

Chorizo – Basically a spicy Spanish sausage. I’m not a terribly big fan, but Andrew likes it.

Tuna – I do not know what it is, but there seems to be tuna in everything. I am not just talking about the tuna from your mom’s tuna fish sandwiches, but freshly cut tuna that basically still has the skin on it. Its in bocadillos, salads, and pretty much anything else you make here. Thank goodness I told my madre I don’t like fish from the start…

Oranges – I haven’t “tried” oranges, per say, but I now eat an orange after every meal. My madre loves them and it is fairly normal to eat a piece of fruit after meal in Spain. There was about a week when it was green apples, but now we’re back to the yummy oranges.

Fresh Bread – Another thing that is served with every meal. Every day my padre goes and buys a loaf of bread (I’m talking baguette here, not sliced white/wheat bread). Some days I feel like I’ve eaten a whole baguette of bread, but it is so good. It is also normal to get a fresh loaf of bread every day and to serve bread with every meal here. I absolutely love bread and this is certainly a tradition I hope to bring back with me (along with siestas ;) ).

Ali-oli Sauce – I have tried it on many tapas and bocadillas, and I love it. It’s a cream sauce that is fairly garlicy. It’s fairly normal to see a potato with ali-oli sauce on a tapas menu.

Chai Tea – Maya and her interambio introduced me to a really cool tetería that’s snazzy and Arabian themed and I tried Chai Tea. Any I liked it, which is rare considering I don’t really like tea or coffee…
Cocido - Really yummy food made from garbanzo beans. My padre makes one that's really traditional for Andalucia, and it's really grown on me.
Paella - It is a really yummy rice dish that is usually made with seafood. I told my padres that I don't like seafood, so they make mine with carne. It is generally the food everyone hopes for when they come home for lunch.

There are so many more foods, but the main issue is I never remember their names. When I try more (or find their names) I’ll post them here later. :P

Wanna know what I miss the most?

1.     In-n-out burger, fries, and milkshakes – Definitely the first stop when I get home

2.     California/Breakfast burritos – We tried a Mexican restaurant here one night, just out of curiosity. Bad idea. It was nothing like Mexican food. The burritos looked more like tacos and the tacos looked like burritos.

3.     Grilled cheese and tomato soup – When you’re sick, all you want is comfort foods. I horribly sick for about a week and a half  (most of which was in Portugal where they neither speak English or Spanish, talk about homesick). I have wanted this since then. I could probably make a grilled cheese here, but there is no Campbell’s tomato soup at my local grocery store.

4.     Macaroni and Cheese – I have seen Andrew eating it on iChat, and for some reason it look really good. I don’t think I’ve ever actually craved that blue box of Kraft macaroni and cheese before.

5.     Girl Scout cookies – I will confess that Andrew surprised me with them last week (and I have a roll of Thin Mints hidden in my drawer), however I wanted them sooooo badly. Maya and I had many conversations about how much we missed them. I couldn’t believe I missed them by only a couple days!

6.     Pulled Pork – If you have ever had my mom’s pulled pork, this needs no explanation.

7.     Ribs – Similar story, but with my dad’s ribs.

8.     Orange chicken – Spain is seriously lacking in any kind of foreign food. I even want my fast food diversity.

9.     ENCHILADAS – The Spanish neither do Mexican food nor spice well. One of our Spanish friends, Nacho, tried a Hot Tamale and he thought they were trying to kill him. His eyes teared up. One of Keya’s host sisters thought her soup was so spicy she couldn’t eat it because it had too much pepper in it one afternoon, Keya couldn’t even taste the pepper.

10. Gypsy’s Lasagna – The Spanish use different cheese here. The pizza and the cheesy pastas simply are not the same.

11. Ramona’s Chicken and Rice Bowls – Similar story to the mac & cheese, hearing about Andrew eating them all the time makes me want them.

12. West Coast Pizza Cheesy Sticks – I mean I crave them in Berkeley for dinner when I’ve had them for lunch…

13. Emilio’s pizza – Only us Ohioans will get this. I could also kill for some Donato’s too, but that’s always normal for us…
14. Taco Bell - When I get home, I'm going to eat 10 of their tacos in one sitting. Don't judge me.

Madrid

There is absolutely no way to see Madrid in 2 days, even though Andrew and I tried. We got kicked out of three different museums, tried all kinds of food, boated in the Parque of Buen Retiro, and learned way too much about the Madrid public transit system.

We left Saturday on the 8am bus from Cordoba to Madrid. We got to Madrid around 1, but by the time we got checked-in and back into the downtown part of the city, it was 3pm. We managed to see the fountain of Neptune, Plaza de las Ciebles, the Palacio de Communicaciones, and the Puerta de Alacá before getting to the Parque de Buen Retiro. It’s Madrid’s Central Park, but less pretty with more history. There were statues and fountains everywhere. In the center was this little lake thing where you could rent little rowboats for a couple euros. It was Andrew’s idea to go out on them, and it was a fantastic idea. It was excessively cute and romantic, and I loved it.

After the park we met Sona (from my EAP program) at the Museo Prado, which bordered the park. The Prado is one of Europe’s best museums, and it has a large collection of famous Spanish artists as well as other European masters. It had the fantastic royal portraits of Velazques as well as the 2 & 3 de Mayo paintings. The darkest in the museum were Goya’s black paintings from the end of his life. This was a museum that deserved at least an entire day to truly see everything, but us poor college students can only afford to go at the end of the day from 6-closing (8pm) when its free to get in. Prado was the first museum we were kicked out of.

Afterwards the three of us headed to La Latina to get drinks as tapas. Sona ordered nachos (which came with guacamole… I miss it so much) and we also got some empanadas and an overprice jarra  (pitcher) of Sangria. We sat outside on the Terraza and had some excellent people watching. The bar that we ate at was on Calle de la Cava Baja, a popular place for people to spend the evening bar hopping and eating tapas. It was absolutely packed with people when we were there from about 9:30-10:30. A trip down the metro to a public bus and Andrew and I finally made it to sleep around midnight.

We started the next day early (11am… really early considering it took an hour of public transit to get there) at El Rastro. It is arguably one of the largest swap meets in Europe. It was nuts and literally PACKED with people. We walked for a long time down the main street, stopping at a few booths and didn’t even make it down the side streets. There were a ton of people there and a ton of stands. They were literally selling everything, from stands with the usual futbol (soccer… mostly Real Madrid of course) paraphernalia and leather works to stands with knives and others with cds and movies. You could get almost anything there, but I settled for a pretty blue 2€ scarf.

We then met Sona at Reina Sofia, Madrid’s modern art museum. This museum is famous as the home to Guernica. Pablo Picasso painted it in order to express his anger and frustration over the burning of the Basque (area in N. Spain) city of Guernica. Franco (the dictator of Spain from the 30s-70s) basically had Hitler bomb the Spanish city. It was a crime of senseless violence against his own people, and Picasso was moved by it to create one of his most famous paintings. The painting just recently arrived back in Spain and there are many people who want it moved to the Basque area of Spain, to the people for whom it was painted, but those at the Reina Sofia say it is too fragile to be moved. There were also many other paintings by Picasso and also some by Dalí. I had Andrew watch Un Chien Andaluz, a film by Buñel (a friend of Dalí and the famous poet Frederico Garcia Lorca) that I learned about in class. I don’t think Andrew was as big a fan of Reina Sofia, people either seem to like modern art or they don’t… But, as was the theme, we were eventually kicked out when it closed at 2:30. The Reina Sofia was packed with people because it was a Sunday, because on Sunday you get free entrance. Us college students know all the deals. Some people would have been annoyed with all the people, but I think you can properly enjoy a painting regardless of how many other people are looking at it with you.

We then headed over to the Palacio Real (the Royal Palace). It closes at 4 but they stop selling tickets at 3, so of course we got there about 3:05 and they wouldn’t let us in. We split with Sona and went to a place that has 100 different bocadillos (basically sandwiches) and we tried about 7 different ones, mainly combinations of tortilla de patatas, chorizo, and pollo asada, with ali-oli and various sauces and cheese. Andrew got one with tuna I didn’t go near and I got one with Brie he wasn’t interested in. We caught one look of the patatas fritas (French fries) coming out and we immediately went to go order some, they looked so good (and they tasted food too ;) )

Then we headed over to the Museo Thyssen. The museum is about 800 pieces, which were donated by the Duchess Thyssen. It was only about half of her personal collection. It was an impressive collection with 14^th century Italian paintings, Velázquez, Monet, Picasso, and Jackson Pollack, to name a few. There was literally a little bit of everything. Needless to say, we left at 7 when we were kicked out.

We then started out return, because Spain, a traditionally Catholic nation, tends to shut down a little on Sunday. We also were going to have a really early morning the next day. Andrew had an 11am flight out of Madrid-Barajas airport, which meant arriving there at 8am, and starting our public transit trip by 6:30 (before breakfast was even available at 7!!). We just grabbed a loaf of bread on our way out of downtown and made PB & J sandwiches for dinner, because he brought me some wonderful Skippy peanut butter. I do not know what it is about Spain (and I think Europe in general) but they just do not understand peanut butter. Danielle made our history teacher a peanut butter sandwich last week, and he told us he had had jelly on bread before and peanut butter on bread before, but never the two together. I personally had them every day for lunch for about 10 years, and I was more than happy to eat one for dinner than night.

I made it to the Palacio Real the next morning after dropping Andrew off at the airport and before I had to go to the bus station for my 2pm bus. It was incredibly ornate and had the most beautiful stucco ceilings. The armory was open and we could see old armor of the kings, and some of them were SHORT. I had probably 6 inches on some of them. The Palacio Real was a must see with gorgeous views, just make sure if you visit to check when the ticket booths close, lol.

I had planned this weekend with Andrew, thinking that in 2 days I could do a lot of the things I wanted to do in Madrid before I left, but I barely did even half of the things I wanted to do! This is a city that deserves not only more than 2 days, but practically a week. Plus, there’s a day trip to nearby Toledo that’s a must see. I’m anxious to go back there (it’s the city I fly out of) and I’m going to have to budget time to see things I didn’t get to see, as well as a return to Prado and Reina Sofia, because 2 hours in either museum doesn’t even come close to enough time. You would certainly need to study abroad there for a semester to even come close to seeing all the essentials. Just the essentials. What a fantastic city! And thanks to dear Sona, we got plenty of pictures there too ;)

Sevilla

Well, rain is not the most conducive to exploring a city for the first time, however I did love Sevilla. We got there Friday morning and our tour guide started us off with a walk through the historical Jewish area of town in Barrio de Santa Cruz. We saw some pretty plazas and the Bar from Cervantes’s Don Quixote. The walking tour ended at the Alcazar, the King’s old residence. We went inside and saw it’s beautiful gardens with peacocks in it as well as a cool labyrinth.

Then we headed over to the Cathedral and the Girandula. The cathedral was commissioned by Los Reyes Christianos (Isabel and Ferdinand, the ones that finally expelled the Muslims from Spain) in the early 16^th century. They basically had the mosque torn down and built the cathedral on top of it. They kept one part of the old Moorish building, the Girandula, the tower. The cathedral was slightly less cool than the one in Granada, except for a couple things. The first thing was their altarpiece of gold, because it was made with about 2 thousand kilos of gold. That is such an insane and over the top amount of gold that it was impressive. The next different and cool thing was the tomb of Christopher Columbus. There are many different locations that claim to have the real remains of Christopher Columbus, but the main contenders are in the Caribbean and Sevilla. Chris (my friend from high school studying in Sevilla) and I were talking about this and he said that of course, typical Spaniards, they had to prove they were right, because they believed it with the same strength as every Spaniard steadfastly believes they are always correct, so Spain invested millions of dollars tracking genealogical trees and doing DNA tests to prove that they had the correct remains. They concluded that, based on genetic evidence, it was either Christopher Columbus or his brother Diego, and this was enough for them. The third thing is the Girandula. It was built by the Muslims and actually has 34 steep ramps instead of stairs. It is quite a trek, but the view from the top is worth it. You get 360° views of the city. In spite of the rain, it was still an amazing view. We could see across the river, the plaza de los toros, the alcazar’s gardens, and a cool bird’s eye view of the cathedral as well. I took some pictures and hopefully I can post them soon so that you can see them.

Our next stop was lunch, and the original plan was to eat outside in a park, but due to the downpours of rain, we had to improvise. A group of us ate in a Starbucks, an American commodity that they were thrilled to see once again. Then the bus took us on a sightseeing tour through the city. We saw all the pavilions that the different American nations build for the Expo in the 20s. There were beautiful buldings by Guatemala, Uruguay, Argentina, and of course, the US. Our final stop was Plaza de España, the building Spain built for the expo. Of course it unequivocally put all of the other pavilions to shame. It was huge and gorgeous, it was used as the Planet of Naboo in Star Wars (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edhLosefD0Q&playnext=1&list=PLE17E2F496BEBB543). It’s another one of those places where the pictures don’t do it justice, you just have to go and see it.

Then we relaxed for a little before walking out and seeing a little of the city. The really cool thing about Spain is you can just aimlessly walk about the streets and there are amazing things to see. There are 16^th century churches around the corner and you might just run into the elaborately designed city hall. There are beautiful plazas everywhere and good for a nice rest with a gelato or ice cream cone.

Friday for dinner Cassia, one of the girls in the program, had the brilliant idea to make pasta in the hostel’s kitchen. We had yummy bow-tie pasta with marinara sauce. It wasn’t so much that the pasta was the best pasta I’ve ever tasted, but it was pasta that I was used to. The Spanish make pasta, but they make it differently. The spaghetti sauce my padre makes is a lot different than I’m used to and he often uses different noodles. I like the pasta he makes, but it’s not the “americanized” pasta I’m used to, its “Spanish-ized” pasta. I ate our delicious bowtie pasta until I was completely stuffed. I had not been that full in ages, and my stomach was upset that I had eaten that much.

The next morning we started our touristing again, and I had a small “check-list” of places suggested by my guidebook, but none of them were too terribly interesting. Saturday evening was the best though. Chris, Melissa (a girl in the program) and I went to get tapas for dinner. We looked at the tapas menu written in chalk outside the café and the only thing we recognized was croquettas de jamon (fried goodness with pieces of ham in them). When the waiter brought us the menu we saw that they had English translations for all of them, and suddenly we were in heaven. Everything on the list sounded so tasty, it was really hard to decide what we wanted. We decided to order four of the “tapas” sized (as opposed to the bigger “plato” sized) of the ones that sounded the best. Of course the first was croquettas de jamon. The second was to be patatas con aioli, potatos with an aioli sauce on it. Then we decided it was time to order a vegatable one, so we picked eggplant with bacon and covered in cheese. Por su puesto (of course), the only way we ate a vegetable was to cover it with bacon and fill it with cheese. The last one that we chose was chupa chups de carne. It was a type of small steak kabob that had bacon, cheese, and potatoes and was drizzled in a sweet sauce. When Melissa took a bit of her portion of the chupa chups de carne, her face lit up and she just said “Oh my gosh.” It was delicious. All of it was delicious. I bet you can guess which three were my favorite though. This was so good we had to order more, so we got another menu and chose three more. We ordered a mushroom meatball one, spinach with fried tomato and garbanzo beans, and a chicken/bacon/cheese one. The first round was my favorite, but oh my was it so good. I was completely full once again. It was a good weekend for my tummy, it was very happy. It had gotten a very large amount of delicious pasta Friday night, it was reunited with its long-time love, American fast food (yes, yes, I confess, I ate McDonalds for lunch that day), and it was filled to the brim with tapas on Saturday night. On the way back from flamenco Chris, Melissa, and I stopped to get chocolate con churros to top the night off.

Now on to the flamenco I just mentioned. Saturday night after tapas we met up with most of our group in a place called La Carbonería to watch flamenco (it is a style of song as well as dance). It was beautiful. The woman danced as if the weight of the world was on her shoulders and the man’s voice overflowed with emotion. Sevilla is known for its flamenco and I am certainly glad I got to experience it.

The next morning we went to Plaza de los Toros, the bullfighting ring of Sevilla. It was really cool to see the inside of the ring and hear the tour guide tell stories of how it was built and the origin of bullfighting. She also took us to a museum where we could see old outfits the bullfighters wore as well as the heads of bulls that “gave good shows.” The final stops were the chapel where the superstitious bullfighters would pray before entering the ring and the Puerta Principal, the main door through which the bullfighters entered the arena. It was interesting to hear about bullfighting from a Sevillan who favored it. A lot of the time conversation centers on how horrible it is that the bull dies and the unnecessary danger the horses face. Hearing it told in a positive light was a slightly different experience, and I enjoyed it.

A few toursity pit stops and a tasty pizza (although, again, not exactly as American as I was used too, the crust was much more like a tortilla than crust) later, and I was on my way to the bus station to return to Córdoba. Of course, with the luck Jake, Melissa, and I had with the Plaza de las Armas bus station on our trip to and from Lisboa, the bus we were supposed to take us home broke down and we had to stand around for an hour uncertain as to what was happening before a new bus came to take us home. Eventually I made it safely home to Córdoba, exhausted but feliz (happy). 

Carnaval

The best way I have found to describe Carnaval in Cadiz is it is Mardi Gras in New Orleans meets Halloween with a splash of Spanish flair. It is basically the biggest outdoor party in Spain and everyone is there. If you know anyone who is studying abroad in Spain this semester, they were in Cadiz. My friends studying in Madrid and Sevilla made the trip to Cadiz for Carnaval. 18 of my group and I took a bus that left from Plaza de los Toros (where the bullfighting stadium is) in Córdoba at 7 and arrived in Cadiz at 10pm. The same bus was to pick us up in Cadiz at 6:30am and take us back to Córdoba.

When we got there, the party was in full swing. When I say it is an outdoor party, I mean it is an outdoor party. Everyone is in the streets, not in bars or discotecas, but crowding the streets of Cadiz. Everyone is dressed up in costumes too. The Spanish don’t do costumes for Carnaval like we Americans do costumes for Halloween. They go all out. Military men don’t just wear jackets, they wear camoflage jackets and pants, as well as the military boots and hats and they paint their entire faces. There were people dressed up in full chicken and cow costumes. There were people dressed up as pirates who had big cardboard cd’s hanging from the front of them, and it took me a while to get that they were pirated cds. There were people dressed up as 110km/hr signs, because a law went into effect this Monday lowering the speed limit from 120 to 110. There was also an absurd amount of men dressed as nuns, and just men dressed as women in general. There were legos, tetris pieces, sims, and the pink ladies. I also saw a group of bishops who had signs that said “busco niños” on their backs (“I look for children”). There was one man dressed as the pope who hung out on his balcony waving to people, as if he was in the Vatican or something. Every single costume you can imagine, these people were wearing it, and more.

It was basically one large botellon*in the streets of Cadiz. There were people drinking and having a good time everywhere. There was no place to go, because the party was everywhere. Half the fun was the people watching. The negative of this whole party in the streets philosophy was that the streets were dirty. There was trash everywhere. Also, since no one was indoors, there were no bathrooms, and there was a lot of ahem peeing along the walls of the streets.

It was a crazy, crazy night. One of my friends described it as “the biggest party he has ever had the honor of attending.” It was definitely an experience that I’m glad I had. You can’t come to Spain in the spring and not go to Cadiz for Carnaval, but I have no intention of ever returning. It was too nuts and dirty for me to have a second Carnaval experience, but I’m glad I went. It was probably the best people watching I will ever experience in my entire life. You cannot imagine the insaneness of thousands of Spaniards and international people roaming and partying in the streets of a Spanish city in full costume.

*Botellon: It is essentially where the jovenes (young people) drink in small groups in the streets/in parks/on the steps of famous historical monuments on the weekends before they go out. It mainly stems from two things: 1. Many young Spanish people live with their families until their 30s (this is fairly common) 2. Spanish is in an economic crisis (20% unemployment) and buying alcohol in bars is expensive, especially if you don’t have a job. So, they go and buy a little bit of alcohol from mercardos (markets) and hangout outside and drink. It’s basically “pre-gaming” but outdoors. Disclaimer: I’m not giving you my opinion on the whole idea; I’m just describing it. It happens and Cadiz Carnaval was basically a very, very large one of these that covered the entire city.

Lisboa

Lisbon, Portugal is a beautiful city. It has an awful, miserable, depressing bus station, but it is a gorgeous city. It is right on the Atlantic Ocean and this Californian was so happy to see the ocean again. It’s a pretty similar city to those I’ve seen in Spain, with its cobblestone streets and open plazas, but there was something about this city that made it even prettier. It may have been the ocean in the background, the gorgeous 70+° weather, or it may have been that the buildings reminded me of San Francisco. It doesn’t help that their famous bridge, the April 25 Bridge, looks exactly like the Golden Gate Bridge. The same company that built the Bay Bridge built it, and they were inspired by the Golden Gate. It’s uncanny how similar the two bridges are, except on the other side of the Portuguese one is a large statue of Jesus, just like the famous one in Rio de Janiero. Needless to say, there’s a lot of room for déjà vu in Lisbon.

We stayed in a really cool hostel, called the Poet’s Hostel. It considers itself to be a boutique hostel, and I must say, I’m going to try to stay in those from here on out. Their “hang-out/internet room” was by far the best nap room I have ever seen in my entire life. Considering that I arrived in Portugal with a fever and well before my room was suppose to be ready, this room was a Godsend. It had fluffy couches, beanbag chairs, computers with free Internet, and large windows with views of the ocean and the city that let in a wonderful breeze. I spent most of Friday relaxing in here with my travel companions, Sona and Melissa. Overnight buses are apparently very conducive to making people sick.

By Saturday morning we all felt a lot better, but only enough to take sightseeing buses around the city, so that we would not have to walk too far. This was the perfect idea for us because there were two lines. We took the blue line on Saturday and saw the new part of the city and the red line on Sunday to see the old part of the city. The red line took us to Belem, a beautiful part of Lisboa. This is where the imitation Golden Gate Bridge is, the Tower of Belem, the Padrao Descobrimentos, and the Mosteiro (Monestary) Jerórnimos. We had a lot of fun in the Tower of Belem. It was built into the center of the river as a kind of military checkpoint into the city/country. The river has slowly changed shape over time, and now it’s practically on the sand (even though it started out in the center of the river). It had old canons and the prison cell in the bottom for political prisoners. The best part was the fantastic views of the city from the top level. It truly is a beautiful city.

I wish I hadn’t been sick while I was there, so that I could have seen everything. Now I just have an excuse to return to this wonderful city. Especially because I never went through customs, so I didn’t get a stamp on my passport; and isn’t that the whole point of international travel? ;)

Granada

Granada is an amazing city. I has a plethora (vocab point!) of history from both the Muslim presence in Spain as well as its time as the capital of Spain from Los Reyes Catholicos (the catholic kings Isabel and Ferdinand) and Carlos V in 15^th and 16^th century.

The Alhambra is possibly one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. It was built to be the palace and home of the royal family of the sultan when Granada was the capital of the Muslims in Spain. From the 13^th century until the Catholic Kings finally expelled the Muslims in 1492, it was their home. It is 100,000m² of opulence and luxury. There are beautiful patios, stained glass, tile mosaics, and views of Abaicín, the old Moorish city (the pretty white buildings and homes that you think of when you think of Spain). It’s like a little paradise and I can only imagine what I would have been like to live there. Then again, to live there I would have to be one of his 4 wives or 200 or so concubines…

The next stop that Friday was the Iglesia de San Nicolas (Church of St. Nicholas). It is perfectly positioned for a beautiful view of the Alhambra and the city at sunset. I’ll try to get some video up on youtube as well a picture for the blog. It was absolutely incredible. The city of Granada is fantastic.

In the morning my friend Sona and I headed to La Catedral de Granada as well as the Capilla Real (Royal Chapel). We saw the opulent tombs of the Catholic Kings as well as their daughter Juana La Loca (Juana the crazy) and her husband in the Royal Chapel. The most amazing part was the cathedral. It was absolutely breathtaking. I’ll add a photo of myself next to the enormous Puerta de Perdon (door of pardon). The video is the only thing that kind of does it justice; the pictures can barely describe the huge vaulted ceilings, the stained glass, and intense organs. They started building it in 1560s and it wasn’t finished until the about 200 years later, and you can see why it took so long.

Sunday started with a trip to Frederico Garcia Lorca’s house at Huerta de San Vicente. I’m currently taking a class on Spanish 20^th century literature and film at the University of Córdoba, and it just so happens that we are currently reading a play by Lorca called La Casa de Bernarda Alba. It worked out that we would be in Granada while we were studying him and it was really cool to see the actual desk where he finished writing La Casa de Bernarda Alba while we were reading it. He was friends with a lot of famous artists in Spain that came out of this time period, including Salvador Dalí, and there are drawings and things from Dalí in Lorca’s home.

That afternoon I took a walking tour of Granada that suggested to my by my trusted Lonely Planet guidebook. Danielle, Irene, Sona, and I walked all up and down the old part of Granada for about 2.5 hours and came across some of the most breathtaking and beautiful views of the city and Alhambra. I feel like I’m starting to wear the phrase out, but the pictures don’t do it just. If you’re ever in Europe, especially if you’re in Spain, go to Granada and I’ll draw out the tour we took for you. When we improvised off the suggested tour we found even more beautiful views.

One 3-hour bus ride later and I was home, completely exhausted. I was running on adrenaline almost the whole time, but it was certainly worth it. I can sleep when I’m back in the states. Where else can I go to a discoteca in cave that has a view of the Alhambra? J

Medina Azahara

Today’s Friday activity was a visit to Medina Azahara. Medina Azahara was once a palace for the Caliph so big it was considered a city, but now it is only ruins. It was built in the 9^th century and took over a decade to build. Despite all this effort, it was destroyed a mere 80 years later during civil war.

The ruins are huge and gorgeous; I can only imagine how beautiful it was when the city stood in all its glory. I wish I could go back in time and visit it, just to see what it looked like. It was so torn apart during it’s history that a lot of the ideas about what it looked like is guesswork.

Regardless, it was wonderful to visit. I’ll post a couple more videos to the youtube account and I’ll add another picture or two to the end of the blog.

Le Gente

La gente basically means “the people.” The Spanish people have been incredibly welcoming and friendly. I have had two recent experiences (in addition to the nice lady at the metro station) that have convinced me even more of this:

1.     Tito

My high school friend Chris is studying in Granada and he came to Córdoba to stay for the weekend. By about midafternoon that Friday we were hanging out in Pub Lennon (soaking up the wifi) with my EAP friends when we decided it was about time we found a place for him to stay. He decided to ask a group of older Spanish men who were sitting at the bar for suggestions. One of them (Tito) not only gave him the name of the place but came over to our table to show it to him online on my computer. Then he offered to take Chris there! If that’s not enough, when they got there the told Chris that it would be 30€ a night, and Tito told them “Hey, this is my American friend. 25?” They agreed and just like that Tito had not only found Chris a good place to stay, he saved him an additional 10€!! He took Chris back to the pub on his motorcycle and talked with our growing group of Americans for a little bit longer. He talked to one of the girl’s sisters over iChat and kept trying to talk to Andrew on my computer screen. It was really impressive that this man went way out of his way to help my friend, a person that he had never even met before.

2.     Javi

Just like the typical American tourists we are, my friend Sona and I were walking around the historical part of town and the Roman Bridge taking pictures of ourselves and every pretty thing we saw. We asked a Spanish guy (Javi) walking by to take our picture with the Mezquita in the background, and he quick acquiesced. Not only did he take our picture, but he also chatted with us after. He worked through our broken Spanish and answered our questions about where the young people hang out in the city. He tried to use our teeny map to show us places, but when that wasn’t successful he told us he’d meet up with us later and show us around. When Sona, Chris, and I met up with him later, he and his friends were so nice and welcoming. We were able to hang out in a local spot that was playing Spanish music (which apparently is a rarity here, we are always hearing American music) and we hung out for a couple hours. I’m pretty sure Chris (with his Mexican fluency) was even having a mildly political discussion with his friends at some point.  We all got to be like the Spanish for the evening, and we wouldn’t have been able to have this unique, fun experience if Javi hadn’t gone out of his way to be welcoming and show us around his city.

I’m sure I’ll meet more wonderful Spanish people who will be equally welcoming to us, and these aren’t even all the experiences so far. For example, my intercambio (my language exchange friend) took my to see the Judería (historical area with the mezquita) after sunset, when it was so much prettier than during the day (as well as less full of tourists). 

El Correro

If you want to mail me anything, here’s my address:

Brooke Weisenberger

Centro de Estudios de la Universidad de California

Avda. Menéndez Pidal s/n

Edificio Servicios Múltiples, planta 5^a

14004 Córdoba España

(write “no commercial value” on it to avoid customs)

And vice versa, if you want to receive mail (ie postcard) please give me your address (you can post it as a comment). You’ll get one as soon as I can figure out how to buy stamps ;)

La Mezquita

Córdoba is home to one of the oldest, largest, and grandest mosques (mezquitas) in all of Europe. It is next to the river in the historic part of town, often referred to as the Judería (after the large Jewish population that lived there before the inquisition). It is a gorgeous area and reminds you that Córdoba is one of Europe’s oldest cities; Córdoba was the capital of Spain during the Roman Empire.

I took over 150 pictures of the Judería and the mezquita, but none of them do them justice. It’s gorgeous. We walked down the famous Calle de las Flores (Street of the Flowers) and the skinniest street in Córdoba (Calle de los Pañuelos). It’s easy to get lost in the skinny, winding streets. Sona and I had asked a Spanish guy to take a picture of us on the Roman bridge, and he ended up walking us all the way back to the central part of Córdoba. I’m always impressed with how friendly and helpful the Spanish people are.

The famous mezquita is definitely a must see if you are ever in Spain. I would love to go back again and again and again (especially in the summer, they say its one of the coolest places in the hot city). I’ll try to post the video I took of the cathedral part they Christians irreverently built directly in the middle of the beautiful mosque.

¡Rebajas, Rebajas, Rebajas!

Apparently every store in Spain has sales (rebajas) this time of the year. From early January to late February everyone has huge markdowns on a lot of their product. Shoes, clothes, accessories, everything! Even the boys were getting excited when they first saw them. In fact, they were the first to make purchases in Madrid.

I started my quest for the best rebajas after siesta time (and a good nap) around 5. In Spain, and especially here in the south, in Analucia, they have siesta time. From about 1:30-5 everything closes down and people go back to their families. In Spanish culture lunch is the most important meal of the day and that’s the one that all the family is expect to attend, much like our dinner. It’s the biggest meal of the day and it takes place from 2-3. Afterwards a lot of people take a nap. This is more important during the summers where it gets really hot here and from 2-5 no one wants to do anything but sleep because of the heat.

My quest began with a stop at Barclay’s (thank goodness for their deal with B of A), because who can shop rebajas without €€€!! Shortly after I ran into my EAP friend Roxanna, who is kind of my niece in a funny sense. Her padre (father) is the son of my madre (mother) and my padre. I guess for the Fontescas, hosting exchange students is a family affair! Roxanna and I shopped and shopped. We went to shoe stores and clothes stores. We went to Zara and H & M and admired how much better they were in Spain. We lost track of time and suddenly it was 8:30, we needed to get home for dinner! There were just so many good deals and so many stores that the time went by very quickly. One quick stop at a chino shop (a small store that sells kinck-knacks and school supplies, usually run by Asians, hence the name “chino”) to buy notebooks for class and I was home.

Boy, rebajas wear you out, but they are fantastic. I got a bunch of clothes, 2 purses, and a pair boots for under €100. Today was a good day. Me encantan las rebajas (I love sales).

Córdoba

After a fabulous day in Madrid it was time to go to my real destination, Córdoba. Córdoba is a smaller, but much older, city in the south of Spain. It is in an area called Andalucía. Andalucía is what you would picture Spain to be. Here they have siestas and bullfighting. The city of Córdoba is the second oldest city in Europe, after Bologna. It was the Capital when the Romans where here and also when the Muslims were here. The historical part of town in beautiful and has tiny medieval roads and architecture. There’s also a famous, beautiful mosque turned cathedral here that we will visit later on the field trip.

There are two options to get to Córdoba from Madrid, take an expensive, quick train or a cheap, slow bus. We chose to take the bus. We looked up directions to El Estacion Sur (the Madrid bus station) and it estimated it would take 30 minutes, so we planned on leaving the hostel 70 minutes before our bus left. It's a good thing too cause of course we got off on the wrong stop. Of course we got lost. Of course a kind Spanish lady stopped to give us directions in Spanish. And of course, when we finally figured out where we were going, we had 25 minutes to make a 30 minute walk with at least 70lbs of luggage each. Needless to say I was really tired when we finally got there. We were taking the 10:00 bus and we got there at 9:55. However, in typical Spanish fashion, the bus didn't even leave until 10:20 anyways. I have never napped so well on a bus. 

As soon as we got off the bus we met up with 4 more EAP'ers and headed to the Hotel. Once we got settled and checked in with our families we went to the medieval festival. The festival was huge and crazy busy. There were a ton of little stands and people everywhere. People selling food, drinks, candy, and other types of things. The best analogy is that it kind of had the feel of the fair, with food and crowds, but it was way cool and a lot more cultural. Some of the vendors were dressed in medieval gear and it was kind of set up as if it were a medieval fiesta/fair of some kind. There was this one crazy guy who was straight up dressed like a centaur/faun. He had a really intense outfit and had fake ears and horns that were on his head. They were so well done they looked real! He was playing the bagpipes and a couple other medieval dressed people were playing some drums. The centaur was dancing around and everyone was watching him. 

All in all. I loved Madrid but I also love Córdoba. The Spanish people in general are so nice here. I am really excited to spend 4 months here.