The Longest Post in the History of Mankind

Hi, Everyone!

I realize that I have been a bit lazy and not keeping this blog up to date, so now that midterms are over, I have decided to hunker down and fill you in on each and every detail that I can remember about the past few weeks. I was forward-thinking enough to write down all of the major things that happened, so that's pretty awesome on my part. So let's get started!

October 10-12: Sevilla (AKA Seville)

On this weekend, I had my second trip to the Prado Museum in Madrid with my art class. After our brief stay in the museum, Christie, Sierra, and I had some time to kill before our bus left. To be precise, we had about 8 hours to kill in Madrid, since we had decided to take a bus that left at 1:00 AM and arrived in Sevilla at 7:00, since our other option was to arrive in the dead of the night, which wasn't exactly ideal. Thus, we planned to carry our stuff with us the whole time, trekking through Madrid and killing time like it was our job. Fortunately, Hannah's parents were in Spain at this point in time, and were in Madrid that evening. They let us drop our stuff off in their hotel room, and then treated us to dinner! We were all elated since we found this restaurant that had American-esque food, including something pretty similar to chicken fingers, and a burger that probably would have passed American standards. We decided to forage out into the big, bad city of Madrid to find dessert, since when we are casually walking the streets of any city, there always happens to be about a dozen dessert stands. However, when we set out with the intent of finding a delicious dessert, we had absolutely no success. None! We finally settled for buying pints of Ben and Jerry's from a little corner shop and then sharing them in the lobby of the hotel. We felt pretty American, but we then encountered a man who was intent on finding his own Ben and Jerry's, and excitedly asked us where on earth we had found them. It was a pretty humorous exchange, mostly because we never expected to encounter someone who treated us like we had the holy grail of desserts in Chunky Monkey form.

The time came for the overnight bus group to head over to the station and hop onto the bus. Surprisingly, the overnight journey was about as comfortable as any overnight bus in Europe should be. We survived, and that's all that matters. We pulled into Sevilla before sunrise and decided to kill some time (notice a theme) in the bus station before heading out into the city. Thankfully, that was the right decision, since we were able to watch a horrendous storm blow into the city from the warmth and dryness of our bus station table. Once we finally decided to explore the city, we went to the cathedral, which is one of the biggest in all of Europe. It was ridiculous and gilded and domed ceiling-ed and everything else that exists in all of the cathedrals I have seen thus far. The cool and unique parts consisted of Christopher Columbus's tomb being in the cathedral, and climbing to the top of the bell tower to see the entire city of Sevilla from above. After our time in the cathedral, we grabbed some much needed lunch and then an even much more needed nap at the hostel. For our evening entertainment, we made arrangements to go see a Flamenco show, which is what Sevilla is known for. The "theatre" (or whatever the place that has a flamenco show is called) was really small, and we were able to sit in the 2nd row. The show lasted for 2 hours, and every 15 minutes or so, they changed performers. This kept the show really interesting, since everyone had their own specialty in the world of Flamenco dancing. It was such a fascinating show, and it is DEFINITELY one of my favorite things I have done in Spain!

After Flamenco, we grabbed some tapas and called it a night. On Sunday, we went back to the cathedral for mass and then hopped on the bus home. The only bad part of the weekend was that it poured the majority of the time, but that's certainly not the end of the world. A note about the bus ride home: I somehow managed to screw up ordering our tickets, so we ended up sitting in the seats right behind the bus driver. These seats allowed us to see through the windshield, as opposed to just seeing the seats in front of us. LET ME TELL YOU: the driving here is INSANE. The bus was changing lanes and tailgaiting so much, I was fake-braking every time I looked up. Yeesh!

Language School
The Monday after Sevilla, Hannah and I began our volunteer work at a local school for adults who want to learn English. It was so amusing! The class we work with consists of students between the ages of 18 and 50, and they were all so sheepish to speak in front of us! Moreover, when I spoke, I felt like I was speaking unbelievably slowly and using very simple words. When I asked the students I was working with if they understood, I was met with wide eyes and nervous nods. It was pretty clear when they would encounter a word they knew, since their eyes would light up, but at the same time, you could still see the nervousness, since understanding one word out of entire sentence doesn't take you too far...trust me! I could not get over how reminiscent it was of my first day/week/month in Spain. I know that it was evident when I understood and when I didn't, even though I tried to hide it. I was explaining the similarities between the students and my own experiences to my host mom, and she said that it was 100% obvious when I understood and when I didn't, and she could see right through my lies when I claimed to be following the conversation but was actually off in English la-la land. I guess it's reassuring that I have to lie less now (I said less...). One of the most amusing aspects of this language class was the technique used to teach the language. Our first day, they were studying and discussing whether the private lives of celebrities are actually private, along with the historical significance of ABBA...as in ABBA, the most famous product from Sweden, minus Swedish Fish. The students had to complete an exercise, formulating English phrases, and then they had to listen to an ABBA song and put the phrases into the blanks in the song's lyrics. For whatever reason, the song of the day was "The Winner Takes it All", and Hannah, Tommy (another ND student helping out), and I had the hardest time keeping a straight face. It was definitely an interesting experience through and through!

New Bus Experience
At the end of last week, Hannah and I had bought ice cream about 20 seconds before our bus came to take us back to our apartments, so we weren't allowed on. There is another bus line that runs near our neighborhood that other students have used, so we decided to try that out. We knew exactly where we were when we hopped off the bus, but it was after sunset, so it was the slightest bit eerie because of the darkness. We were walking back, and I saw a large blob on the ground, about the size of a silver dollar. It looked sort of like a spider, but I decided that no way could a spider ever be that big. I stepped down next to the blob, AND IT MOVED. WITH EIGHT LEGS. BECAUSE IT WAS A SPIDER. THE BIGGEST SPIDER I HAVE EVER SEEN. I had a bit of a freak-out and scurried forward a few steps. Like I said, it was a bit eerie, so Hannah was already on edge, and decided that my reaction was prompted by a creepy person, so she decided to take off running. I saw that she was running, so I had to run, too! I am sure we looked like complete fools, breaking into a full-speed run in the middle of our normal walk. Once we collected ourselves and figured out the chain of events, it was pretty funny how easily spooked we were. Our hearts were still beating a bit fast as we continued our walk home. We passed near a dumpster that opened and closed when we neared it. As we turned the corner, I assumed that someone would have had to be behind the dumpster, opening it and closing it. Therefore, I was keeping my eye out for that mystery person, just so I wouldn't be caught off guard. I kept looking and looking and looking while we rounded the corner, and then I saw a female body laying in a heap on the ground. Her back was to me, so I couldn't tell how old she was, or what sort of condition she was in. I stopped dead in my tracks and kind of stared, trying desperately to recall the necessary Spanish to ask her if she was ok. After what seemed like an eternity, it came to me. When I asked her, she rolled over toward us, and it turned out to be a preteen girl who was just taking a rest on the sidewalk....how could I have not figured that out myself? Needless to say, between the spider and the discovery of the body in a heap, we booked it home...at least we came away with some good stories!

Alcala de Henares
This past Friday, our school sponsored a trip to Alcala de Henares, a small town a little bit outside of Madrid. Since it was already paid for, we all decided to go. We toured the university, considered to be the 2nd most prestigious university in Spain, behind Salamanca, and also toured a theater where Cervantes had put on some of his plays while he was still alive. Alcala is where Cervantes was born, so we walked past his house, and took silly tourist pictures on the bench that has a statue of Don Quijote and Sancho Panza talking to each other. This trip was short and relatively non-descript, so that's actually all I have to say about that!

Real Madrid Game
This past Saturday, Hannah and I went to our much-awaited Real Madrid game. We got into Madrid at 6:00 for the 8:00 start time, so I figured we would have no problem getting to the stadium. I quickly realized how wrong I was...the metro was absolutely packed, the streets were absolutely packed, the sidewalks were absolutely packed. It was just a sea of people as far as you could see. Coincidentally, the game we bought tickets to happened to be the Real Madrid game against their cross-town rivals, Atletico Madrid (think Yankees-Mets times A BAJILLION). The game was actually at Atletico's stadium, so as we were nearing the neighborhood with the stadium, it was red and white stripes, Atletico's colors, EVERYWHERE. Hannah had boldly decided to wear her Real Madrid jersey, but quickly decided to leave her jacket zipped up to avoid any sort of drunken European confrontation. By the time we waded through the sea of people and got to our seats, it was about 7:40. The opening ceremonies were really cool. We sat behind one goal, and behind the opposite goal, they unfurled three gigantic banners, 2 Atletico flags, and 1 banner that showed a soccer player entering a church...I guess it was sort of like Atletico is the promised land in the world of soccer. Anyways...it was such an electric environment that I was half-expecting some veelas or leprechauns to start out before the game actually started (bonus points for catching that reference!). We noticed that the next section over from ours was filled with Real Madrid fans, and it was also completely barricaded by a wall of police. Not rent-a-cops, like at homecoming dances in high school, but riot control cops, with giant shields, helmets, and night sticks. That was pretty intimidating. Once the game got started, though, it was clear why there was such a strong police presence. Every time something relatively noteworthy happened, one group of fans would start yelling at the other, making obscene gestures. Thankfully it didn't go any farther than that! Real Madrid scored within the first minute, and fortunately the man in front of me was standing, so I didn't actually see the goal happen. It was a really even game, and very physical. What surprised me was that every time there needed to be a re-start, the team without possession would throw or kick the ball away...pretty juvenile, but no one else seemed to mind. There was a red card handed out right before halftime, so Atletico Madrid played the entire 2nd half with a 1-man advantage. They still weren't able to score until there were about 10 minutes left, and Real Madrid answered with a goal off a PK in the final few minutes. Overall, it was just a crazy environment, without a doubt the most dynamic and unified sports environment I have EVER been a part of. It absolutely puts Notre Dame to shame, I hate to admit...

Brownies
Last but not least, is the tale of my brownies. Before coming to Spain, we received the suggestion to bring our families some sort of thank-you gift, and the ideal gift would be something that promoted an activity, like a brownie mix. I followed that suggestion exactly, bringing a box to Spain. The box has been sitting in our kitchen cupboard, completely untouched, mostly because both my host mom and I have to be present to make them, since I don't know where she keeps things, and she can't read the English instructions. Finally, this past weekend, my host mom declared that she would make the brownies if I would translate the directions into English. I did as I was told, but somehow managed to forget that ounces, like cups, is an English form of measurement. I put all of the liquid ingredients into ounces, which was a bit confusing for my host mom, and totally my fault. She thought I meant 1.5 liters of water, when I meant 3 tablespoons...yikes! After talking through a bit of the confusion, I thought she asked me that if she had 1 spoon that held 1.5 ounces, how many spoonfuls would she need, and I responded with saying she would only need one. Then, I left to go study at school for the remainder of the day, and returned to find what appeared to be the brownies, already made. They looked a bit different, but I was willing to give it a try. My host mom said she was nervous that something had gone awry, but I insisted everything was fine. After dinner, she excitedly suggested I cut myself one, and I was excited to finally have something chocolatey from home. I took my knife to the brownies, only to discover that it was like trying to cut a cinderblock. Once I finally managed to cut myself one, I tried it, and found that the taste was correct, but the texture was a bit off. Then came the all-important discovery...my host mom asked me to tell her again how many spoonfuls she was supposed to use, but this time I actually understood her question. She had asked how many tablespoons to use, since she had a set of measuring spoons from a former student. The correct answer was three, as opposed to the one I told her...that explains the hardness of the brownies! My host mom decided to try one, and it was pretty clear she wasn't a fan, and so she pushed them off on my host brother and dad. They didn't appear to be to crazy about them, but they were all afraid of hurting my feelings, so they ate them and commented on how "interesting" they were. Meanwhile, I was afraid of hurting my mom's feelings, so it was the most polite conversation filled with fibs I have ever had. I kept insisting that they turned out exactly how they do at home, and I am sure that my insistence led the rest of my family to think something along the lines of "if this is American food...it's TERRIBLE!" Oh well. All in all, I had most of the pan to myself, and my host mom was continually encouraging me to eat them, almost as if the sooner they were gone, the better!

(phew!) That, in a relatively large and wordy nutshell, has been my life over the past few weeks. I am confident that I will return to my somewhat regular frequency of posts starting now that midterms are over. I am off to Paris in about 4 hours, so I best be heading to bed! Love and miss you all!