The food is never ending and the views only get better

Indian dinner

This past week I went on a field trip to the Prado museum – one of the most well known museums in the world with paintings by Van Weyden, Bosch, Goya, El Greco, Velázquez, and more.  The museum is huge and would take days to be able to soak it all in and see everything.  Like I’ve said previously it’s been really cool seeing all of the paintings of the artists I studied in the past.  One of the works that I love is by Diego Velázquez – an important painter in the Spanish Golden age in the early 17^th century.  The name of the work is Las Meninas which is a painting done for King Philip IV.  It not only shows the reactions of the workers in the painting, but also a self portrait of Velázquez painting the King and Queen, which you can see in the mirror in the center of the painting.  The daughter has come into the scene disturbing the area, which is why the workers are curtsying to the King while also trying to care for the daughter.

Tandoori Mix Grill

Indian beer

After the Prado, I had my first Indian dinner … in Spain I know.  I have never had curry before because it wasn’t anything particularly served in my household.  But I tried naan which is like a cracker tortilla like thing with garlic and pesto on it which was good.  We also had chicken buhna, chicken korma, tandoori mix grill, lamb vindalo, and mango lacci.  The tandoori mix grill was what my friend and I ordered because we had never had it before.  It was the color of pink, orange, and red, making you think the spices would be really strong but they weren’t as strong as expected. 

Wednesday I visited the Santiago Bernabeu stadium, or the Real Madrid stadium.  It was really cool because we were able to walk around the facility and see SO many trophies they’d won.  They are the only team to have won 10 European Cup Champions League titles.  We could see all the history of the team and how big of a title it is just to be able to play for the team which is recognized by the royalty of Spain, which is why its Real Madrid.

Universidad de Alcalá de Henares

Don Quijote and Sancho Panza

Thursday, I went on the field trip to Alcalá de Henares, where Miguel de Cervantes was born.  We saw Universidad de Alcala de Henares, which is one of the oldest universities in the world and gives out a Cervantes award to certain authors.  It is a very traditional university.  For example, when you go to take your 5-hour long final exam, which you can only take once and in Latin, it is taken in a room full of teachers watching you and you know at the end whether you passed or failed.  If you pass, you may go through the victory door and there is a party celebration waiting for you on the other side, if you fail, you must go back out the door you came in because you did not graduate.  Once exiting the campus, those who fail must go out the door that used to be used for the donkeys in the earlier centuries… so you can see how old traditions are here in comparison to simply walking through the arch   In comparison, the United States is a toddler when looking at Europe.

at UGA when you graduate.

View from our terrace

Pantheon

After the trip, it was off to Rome!  I traveled with 4 students and had an absolutely amazing time.  I know before I said that Barcelona was my city, but Rome comes very close.  I feel like there are so many cities here in Spain and Italy that I wish I could just take months, even years to travel through.  Every street you turned down in Rome, there was another building even prettier than the previous.  When walking down different roads, you would pass Roman ruins all around you.  The first night we got there we went out for dinner… just wait until I tell you about the food.  I thought I liked Italian food in the United States, but that is nothing in comparison to here.  Yes the food was pricey but in the end when you full with still half of your plate left, you were happy to be able to have some for later.  In Spain, since the portions are smaller I haven’t really felt full after a meal.  Italy definitely changed that.  For dinner the first night (Thursday), I had Spaghetti with carbonara, the first I’d ever had it.  It was PERFECTION, made with eggs, cheese, bacon, and black pepper. 

Inside the Coliseum

Friday afternoon we went to the coliseum.  

This is something I always saw pictures of the outside but never the inside.  This thing is HUGE!  Since it was so hot 3 of the people from our group left, leaving it to Stephanie and me.  We finished up with the tour, which lasted about 3 hours.  It also included the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill.  After this Stephanie and I stopped for gelato on the way back and saw a sign for the Trevi Fountain.  I must say, my favorite parts of these trips have been the spontaneous things and the unplanned parts.  The Trevi Fountain was beautiful, although it is under construction so there wasn’t any water … but that did not stop me from throwing in my coin!  That night we had pizza of course and they had fried artichokes, which if you don’t know is my absolute favorite food in the entire world and they had two versions, fried and a la romana.  Unfortunately I never got around to trying the a la romana type but the southern came out of be and I had to try the fried, which was amazing!

The next day we went to Vatican City, which I didn’t know was a separate country so that was pretty cool.  We got passes to see the Vatican museums and the Sistine chapel, both gorgeous.  Next was more pizza, this time I got one with sautéed mushrooms and artichokes, two of my favorites.  The next morning we only had a few hours before leaving for the airport so Stephanie and I went to see the Spanish Steps – 172 to be exact.  On the way back, we got lost but I wouldn’t necessarily call it lost since we ended up at the river, which we’d wanted to see anyways.  We saw the beautiful courthouse and a cathedral.

 

In all, I hate to say it since I have been studying Spanish and the culture behind the language for going on 10 years now, but Italy may have been my favorite visit so far.  There’s still so much of Spain I haven’t seen but Italian food is amazing and everywhere you look there’s another building bigger than the one you just saw.  The whole city was just breath-taking.

No such thing as too much Paella

Last weekend I went to Barcelona and I can’t begin to tell you how absolutely beautiful it is – with a beach, a city, and breath-taking architecture what is better?  Antoní Gaudí designed several different amazing buildings, parks, and homes here that I’d only heard about.  I can’t explain how crazy the feeling is to just be driving down the street in a taxi and casually passing the Sagrada Familia, which is the cathedral originally made by Gaudí.  He died during the process and all of his drawings were unfortunately burned in a fire, so now several other architects have put in their ideas and it has continued to grow, which is why there’s so many cranes around it, but it should be done within 10-15 years.  It’s possibly the tallest building in the city. 

We drove past some of his other buildings but I was just excited to see Parque Güell, the famous park he made that is full of mosaic art.  My parents gave me a framed picture og Spain for Christmas about 2 years ago, not knowing what it was at the time.  Later I figured out in class it was Parque Güell, therefore making it a necessity to see it this trip.  And of course, it was everything I had expected, if not more. 

We went to the beach, which almost all of them here are nude beaches, with that said not everyone is nude but some of them are, needless to say I did not participate.  We went shopping throughout the streets around the corner from the official cathedral of Barcelona.  Next we went to a winery, Codorníu, which was FULL of rooms of wine.  We got to try two of their wines and get some to take back to states too.  

Boquerones

Paella del mar

Mussels

For lunch, we had paella yet again, two nights in a row actually.  One night we got del mar, the seafood one, which had mussels, shrimp, and calamari.  They also served us boquerones, which are like fried anchovies.  They were good but they still had the head, tail, and bones which you could eat because they were so tiny.  The next night for dinner we got paella mixta, the mixed paella with both meat and seafood.  It had chicken, pork chop, mussels, sausage, and calamari.  This one was definitely better because of the way the rice was cooked, which was a little crispier rather than juicy with some sauce. 

Paella Mixta

After all the food I have tried so far my favorite is patatas bravas – potatoes with a spicy tomato sauce.  Last night, the same place as the paella, had the best we’ve had so far because of how crispy and salty the potatoes were.  We also had some amazing patatas con ali-oli which is potatoes with ali oli and they had added paprika which just made it even better.

This week I’m headed to the Prado – one of the largest museums and most well known around the world, and Alcalá de Henares – where Miguel de Cervantes was born.  Thursday I’ll be off to Rome! Couldn’t be having a better time here. 

Bulls, Castles, and Monkeys - what more do you need?

View outside
our place

Sam and me at lunch

Last weekend I met up with a friend in Valencia who I used to work with last summer at TopGolf on Thursday night then we caught a bus to Pamplona at about 11 o’clock that night, meaning we didn’t get to Pamplona until about 5 in the morning, an hour early actually.  The streets were filled with drunks, literally drenched with wine wearing white tshirts all throughout the city…at 5 in the morning.  These are people who have stayed up all night long and in about 3 hours will run with the bulls.  It was absolutely crazy there, party city but honestly only for a week which is how long Los Sanfermines last, or the running of the bulls.  The Spanish culture is very much a party culture, which I learned last year in my cultures class.  Every celebration lasts a week, and it couldn’t be sadder when it’s over.  For example, Los Sanfermines end on the 13^th and they literally have a song called “Pobre de mí.” The last day they all have candles and they take off their bandanas and sing the song bringing them to tears.  The US may think they party hard, but honestly when we’re sitting down to dinner, Europe is waking up from their siesta (nap) to start the other half of their day.  Dinner isn’t until about 10 o’clock here.  Anyways, the running of the bulls started at 8 and we got really good seats at the start of the path behind a fence which was reserved for EMTs and police officers.  The start of the running is cued by a cohete, or a shot into the air.  The first shot indicates the bulls have been released, the second that they are on the streets, and the last that they have made it to the arena.  After the first shot you wouldn’t believe the amount of guys who already had panicked and jumped the fence, which explains the quality of my video.  The whole running really only takes about 2 ½ minutes, so in front of us they were gone within seconds.

Eliza and me
at the festival

Parade outside the church

Texas friends

Parade outside

My friend who is living in Valencia, Sam, has been there for the past year with a bunch of other students on a first year abroad program.  The group in is about 200 freshman from Florida State University and we had about 15 of them with us but saw several others in the city.  All of them ran except for 2 of the girls that hung with me and a friend from Madrid, Eliza.  There were so many people who were telling the girls with us not to run but they survived!  They didn’t run the whole way only up until the corner.  There were some guys from the University of Texas who we saw a few times throughout the day.  During the run they said they laid on the ground for the bulls to jump over them but they didn’t quite jump all the way so you can see his battle wounds, which is pretty cool.  This is also something I studied for class, Los Sanfermines, so when they did the parade it was pretty cool because I’d seen pictures and things before.  One thing it didn’t show in my research was the guys with these masks on had a stick with a string and a ball at the end and they literally hit you with the ball like really hard.  I still don’t quite understand why they did that yet, but this parade of giants is the start of the procession for church.

El Camino de Santiago tracks

Oldest cathedral

The rest of the day we were exhausted and ended up napping on a hill behind a building and then got on the bus again that night at 10:30.  We got back in Valencia at about 5:30 in the morning and we went back to our place and slept for a while.  For lunch we went and tried agua de Valencia which is similar to a mimosa but with a lot more alcohol, so after that we ended up needing a nap.  But we ate by a cathedral, the oldest in Valencia.  If you haven’t heard about the Camino de Santiago, it’s a religious path that goes to Galicia, a region in the northwest of Spain where the tomb of Saint James is.  Well there are several different paths but you see these markers on the streets and the sides of buildings throughout Pamplona and Valencia, so that was cool to see.  The whole walk takes about a month, at the end or for at the least a week of the walk, you are recognized by the Vatican.  

For dinner we went to an Italian restaurant which was absolutely amazing, and now I can’t wait for Italy next weekend.  The pizza I got had onions, pepperoni (more chorizo like), chicken, tomatoes, and cheese.

Our last day in Valencia we went to the beach and hung out then got paella Valenciana which has polo, conejo, y verduras – chicken, rabbit, and vegetables.  Rabbit is amazing… it is juicy and sweet which makes it pretty tasty.  Valencia, which is on the east coast of Spain, is the origin of paella, the rice dish I had mentioned earlier in the trip.  So that is the “traditional” paella.  So that made for a good meal before we got on the bullet train back to Madrid, which went about 300 km/hour and got us back in an hour and a half.  

We met up with some students for dinner and tried what’s called torreznitos – fried pig skin.  It honestly was like chunks of juicy, greasy bacon.  I could eat maybe one or two and that was it but the best part of the meal was

cazon en adobo – dogfish.  This was fried and had lemon juice in it and it was amazing. 

Front of Escorial

Tuesday I went on the field trip to the Escorial, one of the many castles here.  It was huge full of so many tombs…pretty creepy if you ask me.  We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside but there were rooms and rooms full of paintings by several different famous artists.  It had a cathedral and a room with a bunch of parts of Saint’s bodies some dating back to 72 AD.  The bottom floor had coffins everywhere with the bodies of the past kings and queens of Spain as well as the Dukes, Duchesses, Princes and Princesses.  It was like a cemetery throughout, it also had some royalty from other countries.  The outside had gorgeous gardens that reminded me of the Princess Diaries to be completely honest.  

Only one side of the castle, not even all of it

Wednesday some students and I went to a beer bar and I tried a couple beers from Belgium which were amazing, just like everything else here!  The Belgian beer was 10% alcohol, twice as much as usual for American beer.

The next field trip on Thursday I went to the zoo with the intro to anthropology class and we saw all of the primates.  Here they have a way to be in the exhibit with the Lemurs, unfortunately we didn’t do it but it looked pretty cool.

I’m now on a bus to Barcelona for the weekend with about 30 students so you will get several amazing pictures of Sagrada Familia, Parque Güell, and la playa. 

Work begins but playtime isn't over

Well it’s almost been two weeks since the bullfight so I have a lot of catching up to do.  Some of the girls and I found an amazing restaurant by Plaza Mayor, one of the big squares in the center of Madrid.  They have a deal for a plate of chicken fingers and 2 beers for 5 euros, which is about $5.50 – that’s what is on the bottom plate.  So that was like a taste of home a little bit.  The one on the right is called patatas bravas which is potatoes in a spicy sauce which is absolutely amazing.  The top is a flatbread, and usually I don’t like tomatoes but they are much better here, with more flavor and sweeter.  The left is jamón ibérico, Iberian ham.  Ham is huge here! I know my sister would hate it but everything has ham on it, like I said earlier in my entries, eggs are big but ham is even bigger.  You can see in every restaurant there are just pig legs hanging everywhere in the windows and in the back.  

Goya's El dos de mayo

Where Cervantes lived and died

Lope de Vega's garden

 Classes started last Monday, about a week and a half ago and it’s been going really well.  Mondays and Wednesdays I’m in the office all day mainly working on our money book, which is more like a scrapbook of receipts with money conversions and withdrawal slips…good thing I paid attention in my online accounting class… But Tuesdays and Thursdays are field trip days so I get to choose where it is I want to go basically with 8 classes.  The first trip I went on was with the Spanish Composition class and we toured Lope de Vega’s house and saw where Cervantes lived.  I’m no history nerd or anything but the fact that I’m touring houses and seeing the burial areas of people I’ve done projects on and heard about for years is pretty crazy.  We also went to see a monastery, which was pretty interesting.  On our way there we passed the exact spot that the first battle with the execution by Napoleon’s troops took place in 1808, which is actually the focus of one of Goya's paintings – another artist that I have studied.

We got lunch the next day with one of the girls I met at the Colegio before all of the students arrived, Elena.  She is from the Canary Islands and is studying to be a heart doctor.  We went out to lunch and basically told her to order whatever she thought we should eat… one of those things being murcilla – blood sausage.  Honestly it tasted like burnt popcorn or burnt meat, how it has that similar harsh taste.  

The gorgeous valleys

Thursday, the following day, we went to Segóbriga, where the gladiators fought and there are still remains of the Roman ruins.  It was out in the middle of nowhere basically with valleys all over.  It was absolutely beautiful.  After the field trip, it was off to Valencia!  I’ll post about that on Sunday!

Where the gladiators fought

Amphitheatre