The Rain in Spain Falls Mainly on the Plain

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Unfortuntaely, the wireless connection I was using at home hasn´t been working for the past few days. I wrote an entry on Monday and was waiting to add pictures, but since I don´t know the next time I can do that I´ll have to add them later.

Well I guess haven't written in about a week. Last Wednesday after class and my siesta I went to an "intercambio" (exchange) advertised by Carmela at a cafe off of a metro stop. I was the only one who went from my program but I'm glad I did it. Every Wednesday at Cafe Madrid and every Sunday at another location people come to practice speaking in different languages. To my surprise most people wanted to practice English when I was the opposite, but I met a nice man in his 30s who is completing his PhD. He was fun to talk with because I was practicing my Spanish and he was practicing his English at the same time. He had spent a few months in Ireland but wanted to study for a while at UPenn to perfect his English. That was exciting because then I got to tell him all about Philadelphia! We talked about how difficult it is to learn English because of all the words that are spelled the same but pronounced differently and have different meanings. I told him I really struggled with a Spanish accent, but he said at least he understood me and it is much harder for him to pronounce English words (I repeated the word "Pennsylvania" about ten times for him to practice, haha). After the Intercambio I was going to meet my friends but the metro line I needed was under repairs so I went home instead.

Last Friday I went to Carmela´s apartment for dinner with 6 other students. She is having everyone in the program over in three small groups. We had wine, some type of crawlfish that we dipped in homemade mayonnaise, Spanish torilla, and for dessert a cheese that comes from the North and a fruit gelatin. I was totally stuffed when I left.

In the evening I went with Patricia to the big grocery store around the block, Al Campo, to buy "cereales." The have a few of the same ones a lot of similar things. I got some Rice Krispies and Special K. Friday night I was supposed to go out with friends but half of us never made it because we were so tired. I had my "midterm" for my intensive course on Friday. I thought I didn't do that well but I got an A- on language and a B+ on culture. I've learned much more in culture in the past few weeks but I sort of "over studied" on Thursday night and didn't absorb specific facts that were on the exam, but at least now I know how to improve. Our participation grades are worth the most points and I think I have been doing well with that.

I can't remember everything I had for dinner last week, which is killing me! One night Patricia made eggs with fried potatoes (kind of like home fries you get with breakfast at a diner) and green peppers with tomatoes. Another night we had empanadillas which were like empanadas but had more of a sauce filling than vegetables and meat. Tonight we had lentillas (a soup with vegetables, lentils, and meat). It was very delicious. Patricia has been leaving me leftovers in the refrigerator in case I need a snack. Spaniards usually have a "merienda" which is an afternoon snack (afternoon for them, dinnertime for us) to hold them over until their late dinner.

Friday night I went to bed early because we had our weekend trip to Cordoba on Saturday and Sunday. Cordoba is a city in the south of Spain. We met at a metro stop at 8 am on Saturday, although a few people were pretty late. Tom missed the bus entirely even though we left really late but didn't want to miss out on the trip so he paid for a Renfe ticket down. The bus was about 5 or so hours. We stopped after 2.5 to see a famous theater which is one of the oldest in Europe but still in use. We also got a snack before getting back on the bus. Driving through La Mancha were tons of windmills, just like in Don Quixote! There was a lot of farmland and solar panels as well.

Although it was raining when we left, the sky cleared when we arrived in Cordoba. Jordan and I were assigned to room together again. We stayed at the Conquistador, which was very nice and had a great breakfast Sunday morning. After arriving we had an hour and a half to get settled. I walked around the nearby streets to get a feel of the town with a few of the girls. There were lots of cute shops with pretty pottery.

At 4 pm we met to go to the Mezquita, which is one of the oldest and most famous mosques in all of Europe. I'm pretty sure our tour guide said it was older and larger than any other except for those in Turkey. It was incredible inside! It was converted into a Catholic cathedral when the Catholics forced the Muslims out of Spain, and so it was a little weird to see Catholic icons, paintings, etc. around the perimeter. Other than in the center where there is the beautiful altar at the heart of the cathedral, all of the Muslim architecture has been preserved around it. Outside in the courtyard there were beautiful gardens, basins for collecting rainwater, and citrus trees (the fruit apparently tasted disgusting after some boys sampled them, but then they got a lecture from our tour guide because apparently it is common in shady parts of Spanish cities for heroin addicts to stick their needles in the fruit to "clean" them- totally bizarre).

After the Mezquita/Catedral, we went to Alcazar de los Reyes Catolicos. Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand resided there and actually held some of their Inquisition trials there as well. It has a great tower which we climbed up although the winding steps were pretty steep and people were going both up and down them. The view at the top was awesome and looked out over the city and the Guadalquivir River, an important river in Spain. Our tour guide showed us around since she knew a lot of the history. We saw some mosaics dating to the third century from Roman times!

Around 6 we were finished with out tours and had free time. I went with a large group (Tom finally arrived and joined Alex, Diana, Ashley, Marcus, Allison, Jarrad, Sezen, Ari, and Craig) to a nearby restaurant. I decided to try a new dish- porkroll with ham inside and patatas fritatas (French fries) and a fried egg. It was very good. Most people headed back to take a nap but instead I went out with Marion, Ellis, Jordan, Andres, and Hallie away from our old city part of town to where the action was. We walked for about a half hour and since they hadn't eaten yet we went to an Asian fusion restaurant. I ordered a small bowl of soup since I had a minor cold/sore throat. It turns out I made a good decision eating with the first group because everything but the sushi was awful!

Since it was already around 10:30 and we were downtown we decided to just look for places to go out that night instead of going back to the hotel first. We went into a few places to check them out, including a hilarious Medieval-themed restaurant that Ellis voted for but Marion put her foot down on. It smelled pretty weird and there were sheep skins everywhere and the waitresses were dressed in medieval-looking dresses. Not really my type of place either. It never ceases to amaze me how many "non-Spanish" restaurants are here. We finally found a cool bar/little discoteca around the corner. It was great that my group got there first and ordered some drinks because an hour or so later we had staked out enough territory for the rest of the group to join us. The waitress never brought us the tab for our drinks even though we were in the same spot for a few hours so we didn't have to pay which was funny. A little after midnight we moved on to a place across the street that played more local music and was a lot of fun. There were so many of us they let us hang out in the upstairs balcony room area which was nice since the dance floor/bar area was so crowded. I went home with Ashley, Allison, and Diana around 1:30 but apparently mostly everyone else followed shortly after because it started to rain and everyone was tired.

Sunday morning I woke up at 8:30 am to shower and eat breakfast before we needed to be in the hotel lobby at 10 am. It pretty much rained all day and so we weren't initially excited to do our walking tour of the city, but I'm glad we saw everything in the end. Our tour guide took us to a famous synagogue. Outside of it was a statue of Maimonides, the famous Jewish philosopher who was actually born in Cordoba. We also walked by a little ally called "Calleja de las flores" because of all the flowers decorating the walkway. Then we had about an hour or so of free time until noon. I walked around the shops with Ashley, Diana, and Allison and bought two pretty painted plates and a cool poster which I plan to frame for my room at home.

The bus was too big to fit in the windy street in front of our hotel with all of the cars parked around so we grabbed our stuff and walked a few streets over in the freezing rain. We kept laughing because everyone keeps saying Spain is always in a drought yet it rains for a little almost every day! Patricia explained that the drought crisis is real and that although it rains a lot in January, February, and March the summers in Spain are very dry and extremely hot and so they need all the water they can store now for later months.

We drove for 2.5 hours and then stopped at a rest stop for bocadillos. Madrid actually had a little snowstorm and we were worried there would be lots of traffic on the way home, but our bus driver David did a great job of getting us home in 5 hours. On the bus we listened to the end of the Australian Open and bus driver David celebrated when Nadal beat Federer. I have never watched a tennis match in my life but it is very popular here and everyone was rooting for Nadal since he is Spanish.

When we got back to the city I took the metro straight home and then got ready for 7:30 pm mass at the little church Patricia goes to about 4 blocks from our house. I really enjoyed it because it was smaller and more families made up the parish. The priest spoke slower and clearer which helped me understand more. Unfortunately there wasn't a choir or cantor but they played nice music when hymns are usually sung. At all the churches I've been to so far I haven't seen any kind of bulletin given out of bulletin board posting church events, which I would like to find out so I can meet some people in the parish. After visiting many beautiful, famous churches, I actually think I preferred to worship in this one because there was beautify in its simplicity and it was easier to focus on prayer and the mass.

Today we went over our language exams. In culture class we talked about Spanish youth and society. I learned the biggest concern of society is unemployment (which is very high here right now, I think around 14%), terrorism, drugs (Spain uses more cocaine than any other country in Europe), and immigration (I think we all had already gotten that message loud and clear- Tom's 75 year old Senora told him to make sure to wash his hands all the time because "the immigrants have diseases.") I learned that Spain has three kinds of marriage: religious, civil (including for gays), and common law. I also learned that Spanish health centers will pay for abortions before the fetus is 16 weeks old for a variety of reasons. I was a little surprised about some of the things I learned since Catholicism is such a huge part of the history here. I talked about it with my Senora at the dinner table. I asked her if many people liked the current president, and she said Spain is very ideologically split (their political "left" and "right" wings are definitely not comparable to ours!) She made it very clear that she was conservative (I had already guessed this since her father was in the military and the "right" is closely tied to the Catholic Church).

Patricia also said at dinner that my Spanish has improved since I've been here. She said I'm a lot more confident when I talk and I understand most of what she's saying, and if I don't I ask to clarify the one or two vocab words that she uses which I don't understand. She started to laugh because she said in the first week she would ask me a question and I would give her an answer to something completely different! I'm not sure how much my speaking has improved, but I have noticed that I can understand a lot more when people talk at their normal pace.

Patricia suggested that I watch a half hour of Spanish TV every night to get used to hearing the language. When she was in the States she did this listening to NPR's All Things Considered program. I may tune in to a popular game show which I saw a little but of tonight, called Pasa Palabra (similar to the game show Pyramid in the US). Hallie and Ellis watch it every night during dinner with their families! I may look for a regular sitcom to follow so I can get to know the characters ad understand more. Tonight I watched a little of Camera Cafe, a dry-humored show that all takes place in a hallway of an office building where people go on their breaks for coffee and hilarity ensues.

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