Granada

Where to start? Granada was amazing! It was the perfect blend of a city with a lot of history and many cool sites to see, but it was also very lively and fun! Plus, I went with an excellent group of people who made this weekend a blast!

The bus ride: Toledo is conveniently situated about 45 minutes (by bus) away from Madrid, and from Madrid you can get anywhere! However, in order to get to Granada, we had to take the bus north to Madrid, and then take another bus back south to Granada, a 5-hour ride. Since I usually can't do anything in cars, buses, planes, etc. without getting sick, I usually just listen to music and sleep. So I put on an opera (Carmen - fitting, eh?) which lasted me pretty much the entire ride, but I couldn't sleep, so I just stared out the window the whole time. I expected to see beautiful spanish horses dotting the countryside everywhere in Andalucia, but instead it was just olive trees forever.

So we make it to Granada, and the first thing we notice is that the sun is not out. As we make our way to the hostel, it actually starts raining! Obviously no one brought rain gear (we're in Spain), and even the forecast said sunny and 80s all weekend. So after we check in to the hostel, the first thing that Lauren, Rachel and I do is buy a scarf, 1) to protect our hair from the rain and 2) it was really pretty and I needed a fashion scarf! Then we get our City Passes, a pass that costs €27 and gets you into a bunch of cool places around Granada (Cathedral, Royal Chapel, some monasteries, museums), and the big deal: The Alhambra. It's around 7pm at this time (and raining), so we decide to check out the Cathedral because it was pretty close to the hostel. I don't think any of us were quite prepared for how huge and impressive it was! I think we wandered around and just sat in the cathedral for about an hour.

La Catedral

THEN I get to meet up with my dear friend Paige Schaefer, who is studying in Granada this semester! She shows us around and takes us to a few good tapas bars (patatas asadas!). At some point, part of our group wanders off to some other restaurant, and we have to go wandering through the Albaicín, at night, uphill, to find them. Good thing we did, because we also found the Mirador San Nicolás, a viewpoint where you can see the Alhambra and most of the city. The Alhambra at night was absolutely gorgeous.

PAIGE!

La Alhambra at night

Saturday: We have a lot to do today, so we get up pretty early and a few of us go with Craig to find his mercadillo, which is like a little indoor farmer's market... with a lot of meat and fish. We get some baguette, tea/coffee, my new favorite fruit ciruelas (yellow plums), meat and cheese, all at very cheap prices! Then we go to the Royal Chapel to see where King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella are buried (along with Philip the Fair and Juana the Mad). Next we head north to check out the archeological museum, but it's closed... so instead we buy some sweets from a convent (thank you, Craig).

We head back to the cathedral area and wander some more, check out the silk-market, and go to the big plaza for some lunch! Best steal of the day: Lauren, Kelsey and I find a restaurant with a pitcher of sangria with 3 tapas for €10! And these were legit tapas: a plate of paella, meatballs with patatas fritas, and beans with jamón! (At this point I also start freaking out because my camera decided to stop working for about 10 mintues, right before we went to the Alhambra!)

Sangria + tapas = heaven

Next, THE ALMIGHTY ALHAMBRA. The Alhambra is essentially this enormo palace/fortress thing built by Muslim rulers in Spain, and later used by Christian rulers after the Reconquista. We got there around 4pm and literally spent about 4 hours there. There were many gardens; buildings and palaces like the Generalife, the Palacio de Carlos V, a tower (the Alcazaba) looking over the entire city; and the big deal, the Palacio Nazaries. The palace itself was pretty big, with many different rooms and courtyards, and everything was decorated with such detail it was stunning! At each location we would stop and huddle around Lauren and have a little Rick Steves story-time, just to enhance the experience!

Just one of the courtyards in the Palacio Nazaries

After the Alhambra, we are all exhausted, so we stop at a sumermercado to stock up on baguette, meat, cheese and snacks for a cheap dinner in the hostel! Once recovered, we head down the street and find a little plaza with some free music! (Again, thanks Craig) There are a ton of people there, old and young, and we just hop right in and start copying the dances that everyone around us is doing (the teapot dance was by far the best!), including a lot of dance trains! It was so much fun! After dancing until we can dance no more, we head back to the patatas asadas bar, but they're not doing potatoes tonight (sad Lauren), so we just get a beer and call it a night!

Sunday is a little more low-key. Tyler and Craig left a little earlier in the morning, because they were on a different bus. The rest of us head out around 10:30 to find churros con chocolate (I'm always searching), but we end up going with crepes and eggs instead! (Eggs for breakfast is not common here!) Then we check out of the hostel (and Lauren kicks ass when the reception lady accuses us of losing a key), and head to the Science Museum! It was kind of strange, but we got to check out an exhibit about the human body, and an exhibit of super cool art by M.C. Escher.

M.C. Escher "Universos Infinitos"

All in all, a fantastic weekend!

(more pics in the Picasa album and of course on Facebook!)

Madrid

 For the first excursion outside of my dear little Toledo, I got to spend the last two days exploring the wonders of Madrid! On Friday we had a group trip to Madrid (meals and transportation paid for) and on Saturday I went back with a few people to do more sightseeing on our own!

Madrid - Day 1

On Friday we got started bright and early at about 8:30am, and hopped on a bus to Madrid (about 45-60min bus ride). Once we got there we did a quick bus tour on our way to the Palacio Real (royal palace) of Madrid! We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the palace, but I thought it was a really cool tour! All the architecture, art, designs, etc. were fantastic!

Palacio Real de Madrid

After the palacio, we did a little more bus-touring and made our way to our lunch destination: el Museo del Jamón. To be honest it was not that great... I think it was just the only place that could fit all 90-some of us students!

After comida, we had the afternoon to ourselves until the bus left at 6pm. A bunch of my friends planned a trip to Valencia (and so did just about everyone else), but myself and a few others decided to save our money and stay in Toledo/Madrid instead. So while they went off to find their bus stop, Nolan, Tyler, Rachel and I set off to explore Madrid! We first made our way to la Puerta del Sol, a big ole plaza where a bunch of streets converge and there are some important statues and buildings and stuff.

Covered street leading to P. del Sol

Statue in P. del Sol

Then we wandered on over to Plaza Mayor, another big important plaza, that's also very pretty: the large square plaza walled in on all sides with a statue in the center. And all around the plaza is a ring of restaurants and shops. Very close to Plaza Mayor, we found the world's (supposedly) oldest restaurant, Restaurante Botín, famously frequented by Ernest Hemingway.

Plaza Mayor

Restaurante Botín

After P. Mayor, we wandered a bit more (side note: we did a lot of wandering, just walking the streets, checking out shops and really cool old buildings; we kept reminding ourselves how awesome it was that we got to spend a day just walking around Madrid!!), and made our way back to one of the main the shopping streets. We walked down the calle, searching for a chocolatería that Mamen had recommended, and on our way back we spotted it down a side street! ¡Que suerte! They had quite the list of chocolate drinks, and Nolan was the only one with the right idea: chocolate con churros. The rest of us were tired and hot, so we got chocolate batidos (which is usually a sort of milk-shake). Well, Nolan's chocolate was a straight-up cup of melted chocolate, while our "milkshake" was pretty much chocolate milk in a bottle! Oh well, we all shared the churros con chocolate, cooled down, and discussed the logistics of opening our own chocolate-con-churros shop (obviously!).

yummmmmm.....

At this point our time was pretty much up, so we wandered back to the bus, past the Teatro Real (home of Madrid's Opera) and headed back to Toledo! The 8 of us that were still here had a pretty chill night, hanging out at the Jazz Festival! It's pretty cool, they set up a stage in the plaza right next to the cathedral, very close to mi casa, and every night they've had different musicians playing! And a ton of Toledanos go every night, it's awesome!

Madrid - Day 2


Day 2: Nolan, Rachel and I take on Madrid on our own! We arrived in Madrid on the southern edge of the city, and decided to walk up towards the center of town. We came upon a giant bridge over the "river" (it's tiny), and decided to walk along the strange dry park to find the "beaches" of Toledo!

Found it!

I kind of wanted to check out the zoo/aquarium (obv), but we weren't sure exactly where it was/how much it cost/etc., and we wanted to go to a museum too, and by then it was already midday. So we abandoned the zoo plan, and took the metro over to the museum district. After finding ourself a nice little restaurant for comida, Nolan and I decided to hit up the Museo Centro de Reina Sofía (Rachel went home with some other Toledo people we ran into).

a couple of squares...

Reina Sofía is more of a modern art museum (while the Prado has more of the older, classical stuff), and we went there because it was cool, but also because it was free... this is the life of a poor college student. Anyway, it was very interesting. There was some very cool art there (like Picasso's famous Guernica painting), but I just don't get a lot of the "modern art" that's out there... next time it will have to be the Prado!

this one did look cool, but it was still really random

After Reina Sofía we had to check out los Jardines del Buen Retiro: a huge park in the middle of the city, complete with grass and forests, and gardens, and large ponds, a few palaces here and there. It was pretty sweet. And I found a parrot and black swans.

parrot! 

There's a large pond with tons of boats and this awesome statue thing

Huzzah!

Spanish living

So the Spanish day is a little different than your typical day in the U.S. We wake up later, eat a little breakfast, then we have a big lunch later around 2pm (and siesta!), and we eat dinner very late, around 9pm. Then after dinner the night really begins! Everything is super laid-back and chill. Since we haven't really started classes yet, it seems like every day when we decide to meet up after lunch to do something, we end up sitting at a bar just eating tapas and talking for a few hours! It's great.

The food here has been fantastic so far. Funny story: I was a vegetarian for 2 years, and I started eating meat again a few months ago, because I wanted to be able to try all of the food here... it turns out mi madre española is a vegetarian! So she still makes me chicken every once and a while (and it's great), but we don't have meat for every meal, and that's totally fine with me! We've had a lot of soups: lentil soup, a soup with giant beans, gazpacho. Also an egg-mushroom stir fry thing that was great, and a rice-mushroom thing that I also liked... and I don't really like mushrooms. And we have bread pretty much with every meal.

Marzipan is a specialty here, and I tried my first marzipan of Toledo the other day (and another piece today), and it is SO GOOD. I've had marzipan before, but it was with chocolate from Gail Ambrosius. I wasn't sure how plain marzipan would be, but it is fantastico. (Also, I brought a box of Gail's chocolate as a host gift, mi madre LOVED IT, 6-piece box was gone in days!)

Mamen, my host mom, is great! It's just me and Mamen (many students live with families and kids), but we live in the city, which is super convenient. I don't have to take a bus to school, I can just walk! The hardest part is probably the communication: I understand a lot of what she says, but she talks a lot, and quite fast and I often need her to repeat things. Then I respond with one carefully structured sentence, and she continues talking! It's hard, but she's very patient with me, I've already learned a ton, and my spanish is going to get so much better. On my third night here, my host mom took me to a get-together at the uber-classy hotel where she works. It was some sort of drink-tasting for a new type of Schweppes, so I got to dress up, have un gintonic and meet all of her friends! I was nervous to talk with other spanish-speakers, but they were all super nice and talked quite slowly for me! The next day, when a bunch of us students were out exploring Toledo, we ended up at the hotel, and my host mom bought us all drinks!

I'm starting to get the hang of the city as well. Almost every day I've gone on a walk to explore new streets, new stores, etc., and every day it gets easier to find my way around! And of course it doesn't hurt that everything here is old and beautiful! It's so fun to just walk around and look at all the cool buildings! They are amazing!

Take a look at that cathedral!

Día 2

Quiero escribir solo en español porque aquí hablo solo en español y necesito practicar siempre, siempre, siempre. But, I want you all to understand me, so english it is.

I am 20 years old and I have never before been out of the United States. Yes, it's true! But right now I am sitting in my spanish room, in my spanish apartment, living with my spanish mother! I have to speak spanish all the time, at school, with fellow students, with professors, etc. I've only been here 2 days and I'm already thinking in spanish. Did I mention that I love it here?

I arrived in Toledo yesterday morning with 22 other UofM students. Let's just say I did not enjoy the flights...7 hours is far too long to be stuck in the same seated position. But I did enjoy getting to know my fellow compañeros since we spent so much time in the airports, on the plane, on the bus, etc. There are more students from MN, as well as Puerto Rico, Notre Dame, Denver, 2 Japanese girls, and a few other random people. 94 students total!

First walk through Toledo!

That first day we did a lot of orientation-ing, tours of La Fundación (the school, herein called "la fund"), and those of us staying with host families were picked up by our family. The families came at 5pm and everyone sat in the cafeteria with their family to have coffee, snacks, and to chat....except for me! Mi madre worked later, so I got picked up at 8:30. Little orphan Hannah. But of course she came, and we walked through the cobblestone streets of Toledo with my big suitcase and my backpack to my new apartment.
(FYI Toledo is an old "walled" city; most of the host families live outside of the city in suburbs and students take a bus into the city for classes. My apartment is in "el casco historico," or the old city, which means I am a 7-10 minute walk from school, depending on how lost I get.)

A is La Fundación, B is my house

Today we took a placement exam for classes, picked our classes, got cell phones, and had an information session and a welcoming fiesta! We had lots of time between events though, which meant lots of free time for wandering Toledo, exploring la fund, and Nolan and I even skyped with Emilie!!

Getting a coffee (or tea) at la Plaza de Zocodover

At 7pm we were showered with information about the program, traveling, safety (essentially all of our stuff will be stolen when we travel) and afterwards there was food in the courtyard and a surprise appearance by a mariachi band!!

This one's for Emilie!

There was much dancing, but the ratio of guys:girls was apparent very soon... there were a lot of girls standing and all the guys were forced to dance!

La música!

After this wonderful fiesta, I had to walk home for the first time alone, at about 10pm. I was kind of afraid that I'd get lost, so Nolan walked with me halfway. I thought I could figure it out the rest of the way... turns out I couldn't. No one knew where my street was, so I went back to the fund to get a map. When I returned, another girl from my program was also lost in the same area! So we found our way together to my house, and then she was able to find her house from there! Yay teamwork!

That's all for now, folks! It's very late and I need to sleep! (FYI, there are more photos in my Picasa album!)

Saturday Insanity

So today was my last full day in Madison, and of course, I left a lot of tasks to the last minute!! Despite Nolan Hudalla's sound advice ("start packing early so you can relax and have time to spend with friends and family") I feel like I've pretty much just spent the last two days packing. I swear there were times when the same things were spread across my bed/floor/desk for hours, not getting any more organized no matter how much organizing I think I did...

Packed to the brim!

I of course feel like I have way too much stuff, while my mother thinks I'm being very minimalistic. Here I will give a shout-out to my mom, who actually packed most of my suitcase, took me all over Madison for the past 3 weeks shopping for random stuff, and helped me plan/organize many of the logistics of my trip! Heck, she whipped up this spiffy little "sleep sack" tonight:

Who needs a $60 sleep sack when you can sew together an old sheet!

In addition to packing, today we ran out to REI to find me some comfortable, yet durable walking shoes. I found a nice pair of Merrells that are comfortable, durable, AND cute! I hate to spend more money before I even get to Europe... but I think these were a necessity, as I only had heels, sandals, toms, and running shoes packed. What's more, after I brought them home, I looked at the box and saw the model name is Mimosa Lace! "So what?" you ask? Well, this is funny (to about 3 people) because my parents used to call me Hannah Mimosa Luna when I was a kid!! IT'S DESTINY! I would post a picture, but they're currently buried in the bottom of my suitcase...

I also decided last night that I needed to get my hair cut before I left. Yeah, just a sudden decision out of the blue. Of course every salon was booked today, but I finally got an appointment and got the haircut after running around doing more errands, getting some Gail Ambrosius chocolates for my host mother (and myself), gathering all of my important documents, making copies of said important documents, and packing some more!

So much for a nice relaxing day (although, I did spend it with my family!)... but I think (I hope) I've done everything on my list, and I'm ready to head up to Minneapolis tomorrow!