Lisbon and Seville were amazing! In Lisbon I saw this old castle constructed by the moores and a couple of really cool towers by the river: the torre de descubrimiento and the torre de belem. The first of those two is just this really big monument that celebrates all of these different Portuguese explorers and the second is a really old watchtower. I also went to the botanical gardens with some kids that I met in my hostel. They were from all over: Germany, Japan, Mexico, Spain etc. The botanical garden was really amazing because that's where the Portuguese preserve all of these different plants that the Portuguese explorers brought back from India, China, and the Americas during the 16th century. On the last day I visited the Basilica de San Jeronimo, this museum of Portuguese folk art, and the estatua del cristo rey, which is a giant statue of Jesus on the other side of the river facing the city. It's actually a copy of the more famous statue in Rio de Janiero. I really enjoyed traveling by myself because I met a lot of really interesting people. The Germans that I met in Lisbon were actually studying in Seville and they were in Lisbon on vacation with this kid from Spain who one of them was doing a language exchange with. Stephan was the German who was doing the language exchange with the Spanish kid named Andrew (yes the english spelling).

So when I got to seville, I met up with Andrew and stayed with him in his flat for one night. Then after that, I stayed with Julius, one of the German kids that I met in Lisbon, and on my last night I stayed with Stephan. It was a really great experience getting to know those guys, and they all lived really close to the center, so when we finished watching processions at like 4:00 am we could just walk back to their flats. The processions were incredible. There were some that lasted for 12 hours and the largest one had 2,800 penetants marching in it. Really they were like the equivalent of the Macy's day parade in New York city completed with marching bands and everything. There were usually two 'floats,' a Jesus float and a Mary float. About forty people were needed to cary these things. They would start at a church, parade around the city for a few hours (sometimes with a band and sometimes without) and then they would end the "paso" by returning the 'floats' to a church. I'm not sure if they always ended at the same church where they started or not. Anyway, that's about all I've got for now. Here are some pictures of my trip to the botanical garden in Lisbon and the processions in Seville and some other miscellaneous stuff.

Lesson Learned

Lesson learned: always get to the airport two hours early for an international flight!

Crazy Parade

I´m trying to think of where to start. I had a pretty laid back weekend. On Thursday night I went out with some friends to a couple of bars in an area called tribunal. On Friday, I went and played guitar in a park that I hadn´t been to yet called Casa de Campo. I´m not as fond of Casa de Campo as I am of the Retiro. It´s not nearly as cultivated and maintained which I thought might be cool, but instead the park just seemed to have this neglected feel about it. On Friday night, I went with some people to see a free theater prodution in the street way up north because Friday night was theater night in Madrid. The production was reeeaaallly weird. After the production there was this parade of scary stuff that went down the street. There were people dressed up as grim reapers and orcs (from lord of the rings) and all sorts of other scary stuff, and the actors would interact with the people watching the parade as they passed by. On Saturday, all of the Wash U folk went to Valle de los Caidos (where Franco is burried), a town called Escorial, and this big palace called la granja. That was pretty much the weekend. I kind of fell down on the job taking pictures. Now I´m back at school again trying to avoid working on a grueling economics problem set. I´m really excited to go to Lisbon on Saturday; I think that´s going to be a lot of fun. Until next time.

Basque Country

The Basque was incredible. If I had to some it all up in one word it would probably be this: sidrería. A sidrería is a place where hard apple cider is made. There are a bunch of them in the heart of the Basque Country. We went to a sidrería in Astigaraga to eat one night and this is the time of year when they have just finished making the cider so as a marketing ploy the give away cider for free for like a week. The cider is kept in these huge barrels like nine feet tall (maybe ten). To get cider you just tell one of the workers there and they unplug this tiny little cork in the barrel and then you have to catch cider in your cup as it comes flying out of the barrel. This was basically the Basquest thing I could have possibly imagined. I also had some amazing chuletas (beef chops) there along with amazing fish and tortilla. I think the Basque Country has got to have the best food in Spain hands down. We also went to a bunch of costal towns during the day like San Sebastian, Bermeo, Lekeitio, Bilbao, and others. San Sebastian was awesome. Anyway, I have to run, but hopefully I can recount some more of the amazing Basque adventure later. Here are some photos.

Hell is in Spain

So, I don´t think I have commented yet that I actually found hell. It exists and it is here in Spain, in Madrid. It is a seven story tall department store called Corte Ingles. If you have ever felt overwhelmed in Dillards or Nordstroms, you will surely feel like a nutter in Corte Ingles. When the escalators never seem to stop going up, it´s a bad sign. The thing is that they suck you in because you know that they have everything. If you´re not sure where to find something (travel-size shampoo for example) you think to yourself "Hmm where can I find travel-size shampoo? No wait I got this one: the Corte Ingles!". That´s it, that´s how it happens. Yet the same reason that you feel totally bamfoozled when you´re in Corte Ingles is that they have everything! It´s really kind of ingeneous and sick all at the same time. I´m pretty sure that if you wanted to buy a baby alligator, you could find one in Corte Ingles. I´ve been in there a couple times and had to leave abruptly because I thought I was going to have a heart attack or something. I can definitely see someone entering a state of total existential paralysis upon entering that store. Anyway, that´s the end of my Corte Ingles rant, I just wanted to share that with all of you. I´m really excited right now because tomorrow morning I´m driving to San Sebastian up north in the Basque Country (close to the border with France) with some Italian friends. I think it´s going to be absolutely gorgeous, and the house that we´re staying in is very picturesque. I´m gonna take some photos while I´m up there, and I´ll upload them on Monday when I get back. Cheers.

So, last weekend was really "lleno" or full as we say in English. On friday night I went to see a flamenco production at the teatro español with my friend Maria. The theater was incredble, very ornate with lots of very impressive molding and velvet everywhere. The production was amazing as well. All of the dancers were extremely good, and the music and lights and everything else that went with the production was spectacular. On Saturday I went to a park up north with some of the best manecured grass I've ever seen before. During the night on Saturday, I went back to Populart again to watch these old farts (some from the U.S. and some from Spain) play dixieland jazz. That was pretty cool. Then, on Sunday I went to the Retiro for a pic-nic that all of the Erasmus kids were doing, and played my guitar and hung out there for a while. That was pretty much it. Here's a photo of me and Maria at the teatro español.

So nothing super interesting has happened of late. Most of the weekend was spent on madatory excursions in Madrid of stuff that I had already seen. That was a little bit of a bummer, but such is life. I'm excited to go see this play called Lluvia on Friday night at the Teatro Español. Also, I'm going to try to get tickets to a real madrid game that's coming up in a few weeks. Just thought I would check in.

So over the weekend, I went and pruned grape vines at this little farm that the director of our program owns about an hour outside of Madrid. My back still hurts. All the same, it was a really cool experience. Tim, and Drew, and I helped Ramiro (our program director) and Hermin (a crazy local guy) trim all of the plants and pick up the old vines afterward. Hermin also had a love for setting things on fire, like the dry ground of the farm. He said that we had to burn away all the grass and weeds so they wouldn't overtake the grape vines. I believed him because he looked like he'd been a grape farmer for his whole life, but lighting the dry ground on fire still made my kind of nervous. I also went the Retiro a couple of times over the weekend to play my guitar, and last thursday I went to this crazy discotec called Palacio again. Anyway, got to go. Here are some pics. I got a picture of Hermin and his hilarious little motor scooter.

Segovia/stuff

Hello everyyybody. Over the weekend all of us WashU pepes went to Segovia and Granada as a group. Segovia was pretty amazing. There is a Roman aqueduct there that is still intact and that was still functional until sometime during the 1900's. That was pretty amazing. I also really enjoyed the main plaza in Segovia; it was very charming. Segovia is really pretty small though. I think there are only about 50,000 people there. The next day we went to Toledo and basically walked through a bunch of churches. That was a little bit excrutiating at times because we learned more information than I really wanted to know. I also went the the Retiro last Friday, which is this huuuge park in the middle of Madrid. Apparently it used to be the grounds for the royal palace way back when. I´m going to go back to the Retiro agian on Friday with a group of friends. I think we´re going to picnick there and I´ll probably bring my guitar sos I can find some other people who play music. Pictures soon.

So, I´m at school right now, and I´m waiting for this class called cuento to start. This seems like a really cool class; it´s basically a workshop in which we read a bunch of short stories and then at the end we write our own. Last week was pretty amazing. It was the first week of classes for the regular ciriculum, so I went to about one million econ classes. On Thursday, I went to this discoteca called Palacio until 6 AM with some French kids that I met at school, Mari, Pauline, and Olivier. Then on Friday, we all went to a pub crawl together. Anyway, I´ve got to run, but here are some pics.

Today, I went to the Alambra; it was incredible! The Alambra is this thousand year old Arab military fort that also contains one of the world's most impresive palaces. Imagine the palace of the sultan in one thousand and one arabian nights. That's the palace inside the Alambra! Its also ontop of this really tall hill that borders on being a mountain. The Alambra is probably the most impresive structure that I have seen in Spain to date. Another thing that's interesting about the alambra is that there is a second smaller palace inside the fort that was built by the Catholic king Carlos V when the arabs were finally expelled from Spain. Anyway, really I just want to put up some pictures of all the stuff that I've seen so far. Enjoy.

A week in Barcelona: recap

OK. So basically, I will attempt to recount everything (important) that I did in Barcelona this week. I went to several museums: the national museum of art of Cataluña, a Picaso museum, and a yesterday a Dali museum a couple hours outside of Barcelona. Far and away the most interesting one for me was the Dali museum. The museum itself was really a work of art and the paintings/sculptures were incredible. They even had the Persistence of Memory there, which is usually in Florida. Although to be honest that is definitely not my favorite Dali painting anymore. Hopefully I can upload some pictures soon. The Picaso museum was also incredible; I think I can safely say that I like Picaso now. It was really neat to see his early works (very realistic) and how he progressed as an artist. The whole exibit was set up in chronological order, so that wasn´t hard to do. Also, anyone who reads this should look up Joaquim Vaydera. Umm... What else? I saw the iglesia de la sagrada familia, a church designed by the famous architect, Gaudi. It´s a rather curious thing because the money for the constrcution of the church has to be donated, so the construction is taking forever. Its an incredible church though. It has something like tweleve or sixteen towers. Also, I went to Parq Guel, a park outside the city on an enormous hill, designed by the same architect. The views of the city were incredible! I also went out with some kids from Barcelona to discotecs a couple of times. My latest adventure was last night. I went to this place called RazMataz, which is the largest discotec in Barcelona. It was kind of like a cross between a circus and a Pink Floyd lazer light spectacular. I didn´t even get back to the residence until like 6:00 AM. Anywho, this afternoon at 5:00 we´re leaving for Granada by plane. As I said earlier, hopefully I can encounter some WIFI soon and upload some pictures. Until next time.

barcelona

Yesterday, we took a three hour train ride from Madrid to Barcelona. The train itself was pretty neat. It was a super high-speed train, but I don´t know if it qualified as a bullet train. When we arrived, we went straight to the dormitories to get settled, ate lunch and then went for a two or three hour paseo (tour) of the city. Afterward, a group of us went to this really trendy restaurante that serves Basque style food. There were all sort of trays with little tapas (of sorts) on tooth picks and you could just take what you wanted. At the end of the meal you just had to show the staff how many thoothpicks you had and they would ring up your meal. A number of us noted how trusting of a system it was. I don´t think any restaurantes in the states would use a system like that for fear of getting robbed. Well today, we´re going to the Don Quixote language school to take a langauge test and get placed in classes of the appropriate level for conversation. These classes are conversational only, there is nothing written at all! Until next time, ciao!