Madinat al-Zahra and Córdoba

On our way to Córdoba we stopped in a place called Madinat al-Zahra. It was at one point the capital of Muslim Spain. The capital had been Córdoba, where they were building the Mosque, and where the mosque had been expanded on numerous times. Abd al-Rahman III build the city in just 40 years, as it is only a few km away from Córdoba, and it was at one point an incredibly beautiful statement of power. It was a city just for the royal family and subjects. It is now ruins, as you can see in the photo above, but pretty awesome ruins. They had a pool of mercury sitting in front of the throne that a slave would stir when visitors came so that the architecture, gold, etc. would reflect and dance around the room and strike awe into visitors. There was also a mosque there, baths, and only one protective wall because the other side of the city is a mountain.

Madrid cont'd

Also in Madrid, I don't have pictures so this is boring/ quick, we went to a club called Kapital. It has i think 7 floors (could be 6) and they are all differently themed with different lights, themed bars, and music. The top floor is like a chill lounge that during the summer is open air, it was covered when i went. One floor is like techno, others are hip-hop, one seemed to be dedicated to bacardi, others were just fun. The night before that on Friday we went to a place called Paris which was like a bar/club hybrid. It was fun and much more chill. We went to 2 botellóns, but one was broken up by police, which i didn't realize could happen because we thought it was legal. Anyway, everything was fine.

Madrid

My first non-IES trip was to Madrid. I went there to meet a couple friends from Bowdoin, and to explore the city. Walking around Madrid was incredible. It is just an absolutely beautiful city, and was my first experience with a metropolis since being in Granada, which is a biggish city, but by no means huge. Madrid is huge. It had a very efficient metro system, great bus system, and tons of beautiful, old, and world famous works to be seen.

The first thing we saw was the Palacio Real de Madrid, real meaning royal, not real. We waited for probably 90 minutes in line in the rain, alternating between drizzling and pouring. We were sharing one small umbrella between 3 people. It was more than worth it. First of all, it was huge. Pictures were not allowed inside, but you can get a feel of the size of it from this picture of the courtyard. It had incredibly intricate ceilings, walls, and columns all over the place. Everything was hand crafted, gold plated, complete with religious significance or mythical and legendary representation. It had rooms inside to pray, an armory, the throne room, which was unbelievably well decorated, including huge priceless mirrors which made it seem even bigger. The kings really must have lived the life. Many of the rooms were themed, like about Atlas, or gold, or porcelain. They also had some of the dining utensils that were used by the royal family, and you could see the dining room. The table was comically large and the glasses looked like I would be scared to use them for fear of breaking them or ruining the decorations.

We also went to the Prado, which is a world famous museum, and there I was actually continually stopped from taking pictures. It was impossible to get any, so I took a few from outside, but none of the actual museum itself, just of the surrounding buildings. The museum had a pretty modern entrance into a pretty modern entrance hall. Inside though it was a very old building with great and beautiful architecture as well as paintings dating back often times 4-500 years or more. It was really cool to see all that stuff and feel my appreciation for art start to develop a lot more. While I still have very little idea what is happening in paintings, the techniques, who the artists are, or what they were trying to say, I started to like the art.

This appreciation started to really develop when we went to the Reina Sofia, another museum of modern art. Modern art sucks. It truly is just arrogant, untalented excuses for artists pretending to be grand philosophers and world activists. Of course, because they are so much above you intellectually, you will not be able to understand why them drawing a line on a white sheet of paper and calling it "line on paper" is so profound.

Of course, I generalize. Some of the art is complex, although rarely beautiful or worth looking at. The good thing, though, about being in a city as old as Madrid is that the modern art museum is where we saw the Picasso paintings, including Guernica, one of his most famous works. It is also there where we saw the exhibit of Salvador Dalí, who, while I didn't know before, is now one of my favorite artists. Photos were permitted here. I took some. The top photo is by Dalí, a really interesting piece, and the photo on the empty plate is of Hitler. This was painted in the 30's before the outbreak of WWII which is one thing that makes it interesting. The bottom photo is Guernica.

We also stopped by the Cathedral of Madrid. It was big and impressive, but nothing compared to Sevilla, and because it was so recently afterwords, I found myself slightly disappointed. It was cool though because we thought it was closed, but really just the store/museum was closed and the entrance to the Cathedral itself was open. So we didn't learn all the history and see all the artifacts, but the cathedral was awesome. This is one of the cooler paintings under one of the cooler pieces of stained glass, so...It's extra cool.

The last thing we did before leaving, literally walking with our bags (which were backpacks) because we had checked out of the hostel, was go to the open air market. It was literally over a mile of shops on one street, and it had offshooting streets and plazas where the other shops, often times more expensive ones were. It was just tons of stuff to buy sitting for cheap prices in the streets. After a while you realized that the wares were sort of repetitive, bags, shoes, tshirts, belts, hats, etc. But there were tons of stands that were at least somewhat unique, if not completely original. This is a picture of the crowd. It was literally impossible to go against the flow, you just got rushed along, and the only way to take a break was to step into one of the tents/stands for a moment, and then get pressured into buying something and fleeing before you had to.

Well that took longer than I thought, so I am going to take a break. Check back soon (tomorrow?)

Inspired by the Madrid flea market we searched for the one in Granada, which is almost better. It is smaller, less impressive, and has less options, but it is manageable and navigable. Also, it's close to us. We were able to find sweaters there to go out in and look euro/classy/stay warm. It is right near the fútbol stadium so we were able to see that as well. I still want to see a Granada game, but it may be a let down after seeing the All Blacks play Scotland (more on that later).

Granada

Granada, while far from home both physically and in a lot of ways including food, culture, schedule, mindset, language, dress, and almost everything else you can imagine, has become a place I am at least comfortable and having a blast. I have come to understand a lot of my classes and have grasped the language, at least as far as listening goes. My speaking still leaves a lot to be desired, as does my ever more apparently small vocabulary. I was able to go to one party at an appartment with a bunch of spanish speakers, mostly spaniards and one mexican, but also many americans from a different program. That was, unfortunately, my only run in with them, but it was a good experience. A few things make a city feel more like home, and one obvious one is routine. We have found a club, finally, that is not super touristy, but touristy enough that we are allowed in, unlike Mae West, Principe, and a couple others. It is one of the coolest places i've been to, let alone clubs, so we go there all the time. It is sort of a bummer that it has become a little cliche because it is so incredible, but shit happens. It is called camborio, it looks out over the Alhambra from up in the hills of the Albayzin. During the night with the lights shining, the city on the ground beneath it, and a couple drinks in you, It is worth checking out. Our program, IES, has organized a few events to sort of help get us together and intigrate a little into the community. One was open mic night where people just got up and sang or read a piece. While this was supposed to be multicultural it was almost all people from our program, and everyone but one performer spoke/sang in english. It was still fun though.

Our classes also consistantly focus on specifically Granada, their culture, history, and how the city itself ties into the class. One of my classes is specifically about art and architecture in Andalusia, and we take a field trip every week. This picture is sort of a lame one, but the place was very cool. It was a room used to store water, and from there the water was distributed to the city. In all of my classes it is repeatedly stressed how important water was for Muslims in their culture, and Granada was a Muslim city until 1492, the last Muslim kingdom before the Expulsion.

I have learned a lot about the city, its history, and its buildings. I could probably be a tour guide.

Parada de la Virgen

I know it has been too long since i updated this blog, especially since some followers do not have facebook. I'll put up some pictures, and try to tell about the last month, even though so much has happened this seems like an insurmountable task. A lot has happened in Granada and I have become a worldly traveler...actually. This is a picture of a parade in Granada where they celebrate the virgin of Granada by carrying her down the street and around the town before placing her back in her place in the church. Tons of people watched from balconies, the streets, etc. It was really interesting if not that much fun. They also had a special cake called the Torta de la Virgen (virgin's cake) that they only make 2 days out of the year. It was really not that good, we got it all excited, but then we realized, if it was good enough to make all year round, they probably would.

Seville and Ronda

We went on a trip to Seville, which is two hours away and the capitol city of Andalusia. We spent the night there and then went to Ronda, another city in Andalusia, and then went home, back to Granada. This is just the moon hidden by clouds in Seville after the Flamenco.

There we saw Real Alcazar, which was originally a fort built by the Muslims. It has a beautiful garden and has been added on to by a bunch of different royal families. It is obviously huge, and is still the home of the royal family, apparently, but i don't know how they would live there with all the tours. The first government of Andalusia after Franco did meet there. The whole thing was like one big photo op, so it's impossible to show you everything. Sorry.

After that we went to the Cathedral, which is the biggest Gothic Cathedral in the world. Christopher Columbus may or may not be buried there. They have a tomb they claim is his. But, so does the DR. Either way its cool. We got to climb to the top and see the entire city, which was pretty incredible.

Also in Seville I went to a bull fight. It was just lucky, we showed up to an arena to take pictures and they wouldn't let us in because of the fight, so we just bought tickets and went in, we had no idea there was a fight going on at all. It is pretty gruesome, but incredible. The Spanish are all dressed nicely, like a horse race, and they all clap politely, but there is no drinking or raucous behavior, it is all very gentlemanly. I have some videos, but I'll spare you.

That night we saw a Flamenco show. It was pretty cool, but not quite the spectacle I had anticipated.

We spent the night in Seville then went to Ronda, which is a pretty cool city, visually. We only had a few hours to walk around there before coming home, but we saw the Arab Baths, which are like Roman baths, but, for Arabs. We also went on an official tour of their bull arena, but it was pretty boring considering the night before I had actually seen a bullfight. The whole city was like on a cliff so the main street just sort of dropped off on both sides, it was pretty incredible.

Nerja

We took a weekend trip to a beach called Nerja. It is absolutely awesome. In this picture you can see the Rock we jumped off, its the small one in the distance in almost the exact middle of the picture. It was like 20 feet. The med. Sea is incredible, its really salty, but it is so clear that you can see the fish at the bottom, which is awesome. It's also easier to float.This is just a picture from a balcony in Nerja, which is a really small city by the sea.
This was the porch of our hostel room/house, which was 20 Euros for the night, per person. We got like our own little house for 4 people. It was just lucky I guess, but the hostel was really nice.
It was big, so we had people over. A spanish woman came over and kicked everyone out because we were making too much noise.
This is an awesome view from the bus ride, it was like 2 hours.

Classes

As well as being the week of my 21st, this was also the First week of classes. 4 of my classes are in spanish and the teachers don't speak any english. One is in english, and she doesn't speak very well. They are all interesting, but are gonna be a lot harder than i thought because they literally don't speak english, So, i have to learn the language. The above picture is from my first field trip with my art and architecture class. It is of the old door to the city, they moved it to the woods. I don't know why.

21 Birthday

For my 21st birthday I went to an Irish pub called Patty's Pub sort of near me. It was a lot of fun there were tons of people there. My first drink as a 21 year old was a White Russian, it was an important choice. I'm happy with it. We went to a club afterwords, which was tough because it was a Tuesday and we had class the next morning, but you only turn 21 once, even if it is in Europe.

Concert

last night we went to a famous rock concert with a really famous spanish metal band playing. They love to mosh. Everyone there was dressed in black and had chains and spiked hair, etc, sort of like a spanish metallica thing, so i didn't quite fit in with my pastel polo. I didn't bring my camera because i was afraid i would lose it/ break it, but just imagine a huge outdoor concert in a soccer stadium with a ton of people screaming and dancing. They had a decent light show on stage and the bassist was dressed like a pirate, the other band members were not. We tried to fit in by screaming jibberish and raising our fists in unison with the spaniards who knew the real words. I don't think it worked.

Sacremonte

This is the view of the city from Sacremonte, which is a mountain with hundreds of martyred priests buried in it. It was an abbey, and the moors conquered the south of Spain and killed a bunch of Christian priests and buried them in the mountainside. Middle left in the background is the Alhombra, which is a moorish Castle. Napoleon tried to conquer Granada to destroy it, but he couldn't.
Last night we went to a club called Granada Diez. It was our second time there. Everything in Spain is just pushed back really late, so the streets and clubs are packed until like 6 in the morning. I only made it until like 4, the Spaniards are unbelievable partyers, stamina-wise. As far as gelling hair goes, I wish it would stop. It was a fun, educational, responsible, and safe night.

club/ cabo de gato

yesterday i went to a hip hop club, it was ridiculous. The Spanish people all wore punk rock clothes with spiked hair and mohawks, super baggy jeans, piercings, etc. It was interesting because they played all american music and we were the only people who knew the words, or who were dancing. Also, here is a picture of me at Cabo de Gato, mostly because I want to put a picture up that proves I was there. evidence.

Cabo de Gato

This is a picture of the beach. You can see the beach, and then the water, next to the beach.
This is from up on a high mountain/ hill we climbed. We literally walked through 10 miles of desert to get to the beach (above). It was weird that there were mountains, desert, and really nice beaches all next to each other.

Mirador de San Nicolas

we walked to the top of thecity opposite the Alhambra and we were able to see the entire city in one direction and the Alhambra in the other. It was awesome. the entire city sort of nests in the mountain and then suddenly sprawls into this huge metropolis. The Muslim part is mostly in the hill and the city then spread outwards.

intro

Bear with me as I get used to blogging. Mostly I'll be putting up pictures with descriptions. They will generally be short and only be a few of the pictures of any given event since upload time is slow. Hopefully it will get cool and I'll be able to drop a couple stories. Here goes...

first entry

This is the plaza close IES where I take my classes. That statue is of Christopher Columbus kneeling at the feet of the King of Spain, because every country needs a statue of the first great American. I still haven't found George Washington.