Something New

I’m putting my blog through a make-over. I won’t be just recapping a daily schedule or sights that I see, I find it boring. It’s boring to write about and it’s boring to read. And then when I fall behind it’s hard to catch up and I feel like I’m writing a textbook instead of personalizing my stories.

What inspired me to switch it up? Well for one I’m a person who grows tired of routines very quickly. And secondly over my spring break in Italy I traveled some by myself and it really helped me pin down what exactly I love about traveling. This will allow me to write about whatever I’m thinking at the time and I won’t worry about leaving certain things out anymore. Is it somewhat taking the easy way out and being lazy? Yes… because I could just right about everything, but then again I probably wouldn’t have a life if I did that and eventually I wouldn’t have anything to write about anymore haha.

So let’s focus on something else shall we?

Let me just start by saying the biggest reason I love traveling is not sightseeing. It’s not the places with the coolest buildings or most things to do that capture my heart. It is the people I meet and the experiences I have that I will never forget. Travel teaches me about life- more specifically, about people.

After all, what is life? Life is people. If I woke up one day and decided not to interact with anyone anymore I would literally not be able to leave my room. Everything that we do is affected by other people- even necessities like eating and drinking. Meeting new people is essential to living and learning. Don’t get me wrong- I know that I can meet new people at home too. But travel is a great doorway to meeting people from all walks of life and every culture on earth- seeing the differences, and realizing how similar all people really are.

That’s not to say that I won’t include sites and places in my stories. They are important as well, I find their importance mostly in the history behind them and if I learn something from them. So I will include them, just for a different purpose.

This is the start of something new. I hope by relating my observations about life in my travels, experiences, and people I meet, that other people will take something away from it too. If not then oh well… at least it should be more entertaining.

Granada

Hola a todos!

Well I didn’t get this written before I went to Leon, but es Espana… nothing’s on time. No pasa nada!

Granada!

Definitely worth the trip. I went a little over 5 weeks ago with three other girls, Kayla, Aubrey, and Sam. It was a 13 hour bus ride… dios mio! but when we got there we met up with Sam’s friend Meghan who has been studying in Sevilla.

We finally made it to our hostel

Our hostel had horrible directions. It said to get off the bus at a stop with the name of one of the main roads(I can’t remember the name now) but little did we know that the street had at least 11 stops with that same name on that same line. The stops were numbered on the signs.. but did the directions mention a number? No, it just said to get off and head towards the street called Socrates. How are we supposed to know where Socrates is? I have no idea! Anyway… we ended up lost for 2 and a half hours. It was great fun. And anytime we asked for directions they either didn’t know the street that we were trying to find because it was a kind of back alley, or we couldn’t understand their directions because of their Andalusian accents.

But I’m ranting… I really don’t mind getting lost generally, I think it’s half the fun of an adventure. But the other girls were not too happy about it. I was also less keen on the city after a while because I was carrying my big backpack the entire time. Eventually we did find our hostel and everything turned out okay.

So how about a little history?

Back in the day, a long time ago, the Muslims came up from Africa and inhabited most of Spain (except the north, which I will explain more about in a later blog). Granada was the capital of sorts and the last Muslim city to fall. While in power, they built the Alhambra. It is more than just a palace, it is more like an enclosed city. There were people who lived their whole lives without stepping outside of it. When the Muslims fell the Christians recognized it’s amazingness and kept it around (adding a few additions of their own).

Everything was incredible. My audio tour was narrated by Washington Irving, haha, since he was one of the many writers, poets, and artists that lived and were inspired there after the Christians took power. The architecture is so detailed, everything is about decoration. However, a big difference from Christian architecture is that there are never any images of people or animals(with a few rare exceptions). All of the walls, columns and other structures are decorated by carving out geometrical designs and Muslim poetry in plaster. One of the themes in the palace section of the Alhambra is that there is water present in some way, shape, or form in every room- as you can see in this photo of a courtyard to the right. It was part of making everything very unified, but at the same time never exactly the same. For example, in one area it would be still water and another it would be running. It was a very effective architectural idea.

The Alhambra was definitely the highlight of the entire trip and consumed almost an entire day. Though Granada is a beautiful city as well. Other highlights were the white buildings of the Albaicin- the old Moorish neighborhood of Granada, the Cathedral, and the Arabian market.

Granada is also known for their tapas nightlife. A tapas bar is one where when you order a drink, you get an appetizer! A good deal right? The two nights we were there we spent in tapas bars and found a couple keepers. We also tried to find a place to see flamenco but we ended up only finding this sketchy bar that had flamenco music but no dancer- sad day.

I also loved how nice it was there for the entire weekend. An Oviedo winter involves lots of rain and clouds, so the sunny and warmer Granada was a welcome break. In addition, it was great for all the pictures I’d be taking with my new camera that arrived the same day we left! More of the pictures I took as well as those of my friend Kayla can be found in Picasa Web Albums.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little look into Granada! Now I can continue blogging in order haha.

‘ta luego!

Updates and “Searching for Christ”

Hey everybody!!

Life here is an experience, as always. Though it’s growing a little monotonous because I’ve been in Oviedo for three weeks straight (for Carnaval) so I’m super excited to travel this weekend!

Don’t get me wrong though, Carnaval was a great time. There was a foam parade and Spanish pop/salsa concert in Aviles that we almost froze at. We missed the last bus to Gijon for their Carnaval because we were under the impression that the buses ran all night, so instead we partied in good ‘ole Oviedo! And lastly, Oviedo’s Carnaval was the best because it was sooo beautiful outside! We were able to see all of the parade and part of the costume contest. It was also nice because on of the girls’ madres left for the weekend and said that she could have people over and she lives right on Calle Mon(the bar street). So we were able to hang out at her place before going out into the craziness of Carnaval on the streets below.

All in all some very good times. However, I am definitely glad for the crazy Carnaval parties to end. It’s time to get back to what I love most- travel!

I my next blog will for sure be about my trip to Granada. That seems like ages ago, I apologize. There are always those times when I lose motivation to write and these past few weeks have been a great example of that.

In the meantime, I’ve been adding more photos to my Picasa account-especially in the Oviedo and Fiestas albums- so everyone should check them out here Picasa Web Albums or you can also see them on Facebook under the same titles.

Did you notice my new header? It’s from a picture I actually took here in Oviedo on my journey up to Christ. Like I mentioned earlier, the weather here has been absolutely gorgeous for the past few days. Sunday I finally decided to attempt to “find” Christ and went on a three-hour long journey up a mountain.

In case you were wondering, when I refer to Christ I’m talking about a large statue of Jesus Christ on top of a mountain that looks over the city. But I also enjoy the metaphorical reference when I say that I went on a journey to find Christ haha.

I went by myself because everybody was either recovering from Carnaval or busy doing other things. It was nice to get some alone time though. I had a lot of fun, and it was much-needed. I love nature, mountains, hiking, etc. and going through the same routine of cafe’s and siestas in the afternoon got boring. I originally thought that there would be some sort of nature trail/path up the mountain but it actually is just a road. I was a little disappointed in this but I made up for it by seeing some old Asturian monuments and wandering off the road up what I thought could be a trail. Turns out, it wasn’t much of a trail, it was plastered with thorn bushes, under my feet and crowding the sides of the trail. So I ended up with a few scratches and that’s not even the best part. It was a pretty rigorous upward climb- reminiscent of my hike up Mt. Harder in Switzerland (the hardest 2 and a half hour hike of my life). Though luckily it wasn’t that long. I made it to a little road with some really cute mountain houses and continued to head upward- or so I thought. I knew that as long as I was going up I was heading in the right direction. However, the road started heading down… not a good sign. It was then when I realized that this road only went side to side along the mountain, not up and down. In which case I also knew that I would lead me back to the main road again if I turned around. So I did. It involved some more creative hiking through thorn bushes but I made it, and ended up with some absolutely amazing pictures.

When I arrived at the main road again I figured out that I wasn’t all that far from where I left it originally… I continued up a little further walking along the road. Eventually I came to this restaurant that my friend Kayla had told me about and stopped to take some more pictures at their lookout point. At that point the sun had started ducking beneath the clouds and it was getting dark. So instead of continuing with my quest towards Christ I headed back down. A journey for another day…

Other news:

I’m in a Tandem Program here where we are assigned a Conversation Partner. Her name is Magda, she’s from Southern Spain so sometimes she’s hard to understand and she’s studying engineering in Gijon. We try to meet once a week and so far it’s been going well. She’s about to graduate and is better at English than I am at Spanish but I’m still learning a lot.

I’m going to Leon this Saturday for a day trip. It’s only an hour and 45 min away by bus. Like I said before, it’s time to change the pace of things around here so I’m getting really excited for that. On Sunday I maybe taking a day trip somewhere or going to an Oveido vs. Gijon futbol(soccer) game here in Oviedo.

I’m working on finalizing my plans for Semana Santa and I’ll tell you right now… It’s going to be awesome. I’m super excited.

Well that’s it for now, next blog- Granada!

Dos besos

No pasa nada…

Hola a todos,

I’ve attempted multiple times to write this blog but I never finish…

So I’m not going to have guidelines anymore and I’m just going to write.

Also… notice the post below this, my camera came in the mail the day I was leaving for Granada. Needless to say I was ecstatic. You can check out all of my pics so far at:

Picasa Web Albums

p.s. in the Granada album I added photos from my friend Kayla, They are unedited and don’t have captions but she took over 200 photos and some of them were group shots that I didn’t have. Browse through if you wish… the first 77 are mine!

Spain has been an experience that’s for sure.

I’m finally starting to bond more with my madre, Consuelo, because I now understand most of what she says- though I still have to ask her to repeat sometimes. I’m still working on the speaking part but it’s a lot better because I’m not as scared of making mistakes. My madre’s really nice. She’s in her upper 60′s and has 5 children and grandchildren. One of my friends here, Abbi, actually lives with one of her children who has children of his own haha. My madre stays at home most of the day except to go grocery shopping, take the dog for a walk, or sit in the cafe across the street and visit with friends. She’s really nice, and she cooks good food- too much food sometimes…

The rest of my family includes her husband and a little dog, Sarko. Also, one of her children who is in is 30′s lives/lived here at least for the first few weeks, but he got a job and I haven’t seen him for about 2 weeks. It’s nice though because now I’m able to use the internet cable anytime during the day, when he was here he used it all day.

It’s funny when I talk to people back home and everybody asks, “How are classes going?” I say this because my classes seem like such a small part of life here. I’m always done by 1 or 2pm and I don’t get too much homework. And if you factor in that I eat lunch at 3 and dinner at 9:30, my classes take up less than half of my day.

I really like most of my classes though. Grammar and Vocabulary are both interesting, useful, and taught by really good teachers. Translation is okay, my profesora is a new, young teacher who is really nice but it’s obvious she doesn’t have much experience. Overall however, I think that class will be useful. Hispanoamerica is my least favorite class. It’s boring and the teacher is very soft-spoken so it’s often difficult to understand what she’s talking about.

Art is my favorite class. I absolutely love the teacher because she’s so enthusiastic about the subject and is able to explain everything so well. It’s awesome because I can travel and easily see in person what we are studying in class. For example, there is an old church two minutes from school that we went to one day for class to see an example of the architecture style that we were studying. Also, when I went to Granada I saw the Alhambra which was built by the Muslims, that same week in class we talked about Muslim art and architecture. We spent an entire day talking about the Alhambra because it is such a great example of that style and representative of life during that period of time.

So what do I do with the rest of my time? No pasa nada(no worries)… there are many options en Espana! But…that will have to wait because I’ve put off posting this for wayyy too long.

Hasta luego!

Photos

Hey! I have a camera now and I just got back from Granada. A new blog will be up later but here is a link to view my photos from Granada for those who don’t have facebook. I’ll add captions soon too.
http://picasaweb.google.com/acgansen/Granada?feat=directlink#
Enjoy!

Oviedo

Hola a todos,

Since I’ve been reluctant to catch up on my blogging lately I’ve decided to update by category instead of chronologically to make it easier. In the future topics will cover my family, classes, friends, food, nightlife, and travel.  This one will be all about the city of Oviedo- enjoy!

The library where on nice days we sit outside and steal internet.

This city is deceiving because on the surface Oviedo seems comparable to any city in the U.S. (except that it’s obviously older than any city in the States). There are restaurants, bars, café’s with wifi, banks, bakeries, markets, and many stores in general. However, the Spanish culture lurks around every corner. Everything closes from 2-4pm except café’s. This is the time for comida(lunch) and a siesta- my favorite part of the day! Also, if I walk around the block I pass at least 10 café’s it seems and none of them are part of a chain. It’s amazing that with so many around that they all stay in business, but that’s where everybody goes when everything else closes in the afternoon or to get out of the house and see your friends in the evening. Oh, before I forget, Oviedo is one of the cleanest cities in Europe- though it’s hard to find trash cans anywhere. Every night the city streets and sidewalks are completely hosed down. We were walking home one night during this and were afraid of accidentally getting drenched! There are a million more big and small differences in their everyday life but I’ll discuss them in the other blogs.

Oviedo’s population is about 200,000 but it’s very condensed, it would probably only take about an hour to walk from one end to the other. Also, there are two towns about a half hour away by bus on the beach. I’ve been to Gijon already but only at night(more about that later in either the nightlife/travel blog) and I’m sure I’ll make it to Aviles soon.

I should mention that my apartment here is nice, and I have my own decent size room. It’s pretty average as far as I’ve seen in Oviedo and Gijon. I don’t know anyone here who lives in an actual house, everybody owns an apartment. I live on the 6th floor of an 8 story apartment building which is seems standard (yes there is an elevator). My apartment building is about a half hour from the University(walking) and about 20 min by bus. We normally only take the bus if it’s raining heavily or we’re running late for comida- we’ve got to work off all the food that our madres try to feed us!

Kayla and I in front of the Cathedral at night

My apartment is in the new part of Oviedo and besides the beautiful fountains that are scattered all around the city, my neighborhood isn’t anything special. The University, however, is near El Antigua which is the old part of town. This is where all the amazing architecture and interesting neighborhoods are. Along with many other interesting buildings there is an old Cathedral there that my art class is going to visit next week. Also, right by the Cathedral there is Calle Mon- this is a street that I will mention a lot during my nightlife blog hehe.

As well as being architecturally stunning, there are many beautiful parks within the city and the mountains are always provide a spectacular view as they surround the city. I’m able to walk about 10 min down my street to the edge of the city where there is a beautiful lookout of the surrounding landscape. On top of one of the mountains there is a gigantic statue of Jesus Christ visible from the city and is always lit up at night as well. This weekend we were supposed to “climb up to Christ” but it never happened due to some other plans that developed and the weather was less than ideal as well.

A fountain near the University

Speaking of the weather… I know you’re all jealous that I’m in Spain where it’s warm and sunny, that’s not entirely true. Though I have to admit, it beats a Midwest winter any day. When we first arrived the weather was not typical- there was snow on the palm trees! That was an interesting sight for sure. The snow and ice have been gone for a while though. The weather here is typically in the lower 50′s or upper 40′s and it rains all… the… time. However, there have been some days with pretty amazing weather so far. And though it rains a ton, normally it doesn’t last the entire day.

On the days that are sunny and beautiful the entire city becomes ten times more beautiful than it already is. It’s the days like that when I severely miss my camera. People have offered me their cameras to take a few pictures with, but it’s not the same. I knew all of my old camera’s in’s and out’s and I knew how to manipulate it to make the picture look exactly how I wanted. While a new camera is on its way courtesy of my parents, I feel that my old one deserves a proper good-bye. So adios my dear camera, you served me well for the all too short year that you’ve been in my possession. We’ve had our ups and downs but we’ve never stopped growing together. That is, sadly, until Saturday the 9th of January, 2010. Rest in Peace dear friend, you will be missed…

I’m trying to think if I missed anything, but nothing comes to mind now. If I think of something later I’ll make a note to mention it in a later blog.

Hasta luego!

Overwhelmed

Buenos dias,

Lo siento (I’m sorry) that it takes me so long to write these. To improve, I’m in the process of organizing a schedule for when I write/post. We all know how organized I am so we’ll see how that goes… haha.

Oh… also I apologize for any random Spanish words that appear here, It’s hard to get them out of your head when you hear them all day.

Anyway, it’s finally time for the good stuff- the reason I’m in Europe at all. Monday was The Day, the day that would determine the rest of my 5 month study abroad experience. It was overwhelming that’s for sure- it still is. And we were finally fully submerged into the Spanish language all day long.

In the morning we packed up and checked out of the hotel in order to go meet our new families. Thinking about it now I still get scared and nervous. Who knows what this family could be like? They speak a completely different language and live in a different culture- how will I adjust? Will they like me? Will I like them? These and many other worries were constantly running through my mind.

The first half hour with my new padres is all a blur now. I remember meeting them and then they drove me and another guy(Zach) studying abroad back to their place. Showed me my room, served us breakfast, stored his luggage until his madre got off work, and then carted us back to la Universidad de Oviedo. I feel like I was able to speak to and understand my padres a lot better that first day than the entire rest of the week. The reason I think is because Zach was there and we were able to help each other out and catch what the other missed.

The language school building at the University where I have all of my classes

And that only covers half of the morning. At 10:30 we were at the University listening to an Introduction Seminar for the language school–all in Spanish of course. And then we were given a test to determine our level for classes. The levels are Intermediate 1, 2, and 3 and Advanced 1, 2, and 3. We wouldn’t find out what we were assigned until the next day.

That’s a lot of stress and a lot of Spanish for one day, and it was still only 12:30pm. Since Zach lives in the same building but a floor below me we stuck together to try to figure out how to get home. Luckily Zach knew one of the other guys, Fletcher, who had arrived and met his madre early and lived right across the street from us. He had walked to school that morning so we followed him back.

The group that I walk with a lot

When we got back my madre fed us comida (the biggest meal of the day served as a late lunch). I should have realized then that I shouldn’t eat more than normal because every meal after that has been huge. She served us so much food, and she it seems like she takes offense or thinks we don’t like it when we don’t eat it all. It’s been one of the challenges that I’ve been slowly working on. It’s gotten a lot better though, she seems less offended and serving me a little less food nowadays. I think it’s finally gotten through that I just can’t eat that much, especially all at once.

It was hard those first few days because I wasn’t feeling very good for the first week to begin with so I never really had much of an appetite. I would only eat half of what she gave me, she would then ask if I didn’t like it- which was never the case- then I would say “no puedo comer mas” (I can’t eat any more) but then she would offer me yogurt, fruit, or a cookie. Everyone seemed to be having similar problems though with their padres too so at least I wasn’t alone.

That first day with Zach at lunch with us we were eating what looked and tasted like pot roast which we eventually found out was made with veal. An interesting choice of meat to me but it tasted the same as normal beef so I didn’t care much.

Then Zach left and met his madre and I unpacked and took my first of many wonderful siestas! That is one part of this culture that I’m definitely going to miss when I finally leave.

Later Fletcher, Zach and I went to go get some café con leche and wander around the neighborhood a bit. We eventually figured out that my friend Kayla lives really close too so now she walks with us everywhere as well.

First cafe con leche with Fletcher and Zach (Zach took the picture)

The days here seem a lot longer than in the States. I don’t mean light-wise, just in general there seems to be more time. We get up for class at 7:30 most days(Friday it’s 8:30 because I don’t have class till 10) and at 8:30 we walk 20 min/half hour to get to Campus. Classes are supposedly supposed to start on the hour and end 10 to, but really it’s the opposite- they don’t start until at least 10 after and end on the hour.  So we arrive around 9, class starts in 10 min. and we have 2-4 classes a day. My classes are always done by 2 but that’s because I’m in Intermediate 2 and all Intermediate classes start at 9 but finish at 2, while all advanced classes normally start at 10 and end at 3. Anyway, after classes are done we normally walk back home  which takes another half hour or so and is uphill most of the way. When I get home I have comida and then normally a siesta. Then it’s still only 5:30 and dinner isn’t until 9/9:30! So most afternoons/evenings we get together and wander around, get café con leche, or find something else to do. Splitting the day up that way just makes it seem so much longer.

The first few days of classes I went to more than I was actually able to take in order to determine which ones I would like best. I finally decided on Grammar, Vocabulary, Art, Translation, and Hispanoamerica. I really like all of them except Hispanoamerica but that doubles up for credit in my major and my gen-eds. I also don’t care much for my Translation teacher as a teacher but she seems like a really nice person and the class will be useful.

Though it’s all slowly getting easier, Monday and Tuesday were very hard. And I admit that I may have cracked under frustration and stress a couple of times. I couldn’t wait to get out of the house the first week because I was scared to talk to my padres thinking they wouldn’t be able to understand me or I them.

But don’t worry, as my madre says- I will learn a lot! And I am. Already it’s easier to hold a conversation with her. Before you know it I’ll be talking up a storm!

I think that’s good for now,

Hasta Luego!

p.s. any pictures in this blog and probably the next few as well are taken by the other students that I know here because I don’t have a working camera yet.