Third Week-Salamanca, fútbol, Prado

miércoles el 18 de enero

            Wednesday is the one day a week we are required to eat lunch outside of our homestay, so today I went out for lunch. I had a bocadillo (very common sandwich, usually on a baguette with some kind of ham and cheese, mine was jamón iberico and brie) and a smoothie. I ate with some friends near the Prado so we could meet outside the group entrance at 3pm for class! It was great being able to see the actual work of art as we discussed it, but it was not as enjoyable because I spent so much time looking down at my notebook to scribble down notes in a likely undecipherable combination of Spanish, English and symbols. Luckily, the Prado and several other museums are free most days 6-8pm and free to students (although I´m not sure if I will have the proper identification to get me in free just for being a student)., so I can come back to have more leisurely encounters with the art later.

            Tonight was the Real Madrid v Barcelona game…which is a BIG deal here as it´s a huge rivalry. Everyone is talking about it, from the students to our professors to waiters and bartenders to the person from whom I bought a notarized copy of my passport (much better than carrying around the real thing). We were planning on going to 100 Montadillos at the recommendation of another student, but when we got there it turns out that not all 100 Montadillos (there are several in Madrid) have TVs and this one did not. It was around 9:30 at the time, and we quickly grabbed pizza from a 24-hour pizza place (which is less than a 10-minute walk away from mi casa and on my street, Calle Fuencarral…I´m definitely remembering that) and began searching for another bar to watch the game. The first two we found we completely full, not even standing room available. We squeezed our way into the third and stood a few people away from the bar and constantly being jostled by the waitress carrying trays of tapas and beer. We made friends with the bartender, Jose, (really an act of self-preservation) and the Spaniards surround us, who taught us soccer-related words in Spanish and a song that was very soccer hooliganish:

Hemos venido

A borrachado

El resultado

Nos da igual

Hopefully we’ll learn more at the game on Sunday. Barca won 2-1, sadly, but watching the game was still really fun and when Real Madrid scored (they were the first to score) the bar erupted in cheering (and booing, because there were a decent number of Barca supporters in the bar). Spaniard tend to identify much more with the place they’re originally from than the one they’re currently living, so even if someone has been living in Madrid for ten years, if they’re from Barcelona (or Catalunia in general probably), they’ll be Barca and not Real Madrid. Also, there were a decent number of Athletic Club Madrid supporters who cheer against Real Madrid whenever possible. Whenever Real Madrid wins, everyone goes to Plaza de Cibeles to celebrate, so hopefully that’s where I’ll be Sunday night!

Side note: I’m currently writing on a Spanish keyboard instead of my laptop, and I just discovered that what I thought was the apostrophe is actually an accent mark, so if any apostrophes look strange earlier in this entry, that’s why.

           

jueves el 19 de enero

            Just Spanish class in the morning today, which means that my weekend begins at 10:30am! I went with Merche and Mercedes to take Jacob (the great dane) and Sulti (the chocolate lab) on a walk. It was pretty interesting weaving through crowds with such a group, but we were only on crowded streets for a short time because Mercedes and Merche know the best ways to go to avoid giant groups of people. Every now and then we’d come across another dog (there are tons in Madrid), and sometimes that dog would be “suelto”, off their leash, and Mercedes would get very indignant and tell me how irresponsible the owners were. I had a nice tour of part of Madrid, as Merche and Mercedes told me all about wherever we were, although I definitely need to walk around by myself more to get a better feel for the city beyond the places I go a lot (Sol, the Institute, Chueca in general (my barrio), the area around el Prado. Also, poor Jacob is allergic to cigarette smoke, so he would sneeze whenever we passed someone smoking, which is actually much less frequently than you would think because fewer people smoke in Madrid than I expected.

viernes el 20 de enero

            Today I went to Salamanca! We took the 10:30 bus from the Estación Sur, which is very easy to get to because it is connection to the metro. I was running a little late in the morning because the water heater had accidentally turned off, but luckily my mama española was up when I was eating breakfast and I mentioned that the water wasn’t heating so she turned it back on and I showered quick (for me) before taking the metro to the train station. I stand by my earlier assertion that I love the metro. The longest I have had to wait for a metro is still 5 minutes, and that has only happened once because I just barely missed the train. Then, I accidentally took the longer way to the bus station, so I arrived there at 10:25, but luckily the bus didn’t leave until about 10:40 and I made it with plenty of time. However, two people in our group did not have such luck and missed the bus entirely.

            The trip was supposed to take three hours, but took a little more because we made a lot of stops (some in seemingly random places on the road, but people got off, so it must have lead to somewhere). We arrived in Salamanca around 2pm and set off the explore. First, though, we needed a snack, so we stopped in to a cafeteria and I had a bocadillo with jamón iberico and cheese, delicious as always. Salamanca is a fairly old city, very famous for its university, founded in 1218 and the oldest in Spain (third oldest in the western world). Salamanca continues the tradition of being a university tradition and is full of Spanish and international students, but unfortunately we made the mistake of going the week of exams in Spain (the same week in the whole country and a really big, scary ordeal), so we didn’t see many students because most of them were stuck inside studying.

            Still, we saw the Plaza Mayor, which is very beautiful, especially at night when it is all lit up and full (completely full) of people going for pre-cena walks. We walked around in the old quarter of the city, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site thanks to its fantastic architecture and cultural importance to Spain and Europe in general. We toured the Convento de San Esteban, which is large and quite beautiful, and has some very interesting references to the Spanish mission system in California and bringing Catholicism to the natives that present a very different viewpoint on the subject than the one I am more privy to living in Calfornia and hearing more the Native American side of the story. We passed by La Clerecía, Casa de las Conchas, the Old (12^th century) and New (16^th century) cathedrals and lots of other beautiful historic buildings. It was pretty cold, so we also sampled the hot chocolate of Salamanca, and I give my approval. There is a fantastic, incredibly ornate façade on the main wall of the University of Salamanca, and somewhere hidden on that façade is a small frog. They say that if you find the frog, you will graduate from the university (or will graduate in general, whatever you prefer), so we looked for the frog, and found it J

            We had drinks and tapas around nine in a very fun place, and for my tapas I had San Jacobos! Not all of you will be aware of this, but I have been looking for San Jacobos since I came back from my mini-study abroad in Granada four years ago, so these were incredibly satisfying, and I made everyone at my table try some. They are basically two pieces of cheese with a piece of ham in the middle dipped in egg and breadcrumbs (I think) and then fried. Basically grilled ham and cheese without the bread and fried. Awesome.

            There is a recent tradition in which the Spanish youth participate called botellón. It’s technically illegal, but luckily open container laws in Spain are a little more lax than in the US. As Salamanca is a college town full of students who probably botellón before going out (around 2am, no discoteca will be open—except as just a bar— before 1, and they close at 6am) the corner convenience stores have prepared for this by offering a special deals (including a pack of plastic cups) which I found to be the Spanish alternative to finding packs of red cups and ping-pong balls ready for beer pong in grocery stores near universities in the US.

            As it was the week of exams, the nightlife was less crowded, but there was definitely still people, and it was nice to not worry about paying cover charges or waiting in line anywhere. We took the 6am bus back to Madrid, and to be perfectly honest, that was pretty rough. But now is the time for me to be doing ridiculous travel plans…when I come back to Salamanca in X years I can stay in a hotel.

sábado el 21 de enero

            I arrived back at the house today at around 9:30am, and I was exhausted. I got straight into bed and slept until 2:30, and then had lunch around 3:15, then did homework until la cena around 10:30, and then did more homework until bed.

domingo el 22 de enero

            For the first part of the day, I rested in preparation for tonight’s game: Real Madrid vs. Athletic Club Bilbao! I walked down to Sol (which takes about five minutes from my house, an awesome location) to find a good place to buy a Real Madrid bufanda so I could be a proper fútbol fan.

First of all, taking the metro to Santiago Bernabéu (Real Madrid’s stadium) was insane. When the metro arrived, it was already packed, but still the entire platform full of people (including us) tried to board. The doors closed, then opened again, and then the metro just sat there a few more minutes. I’m pretty sure we somehow overloaded the system (or surpassed the maximum weight capacity) because we all had to get out of the train and wait for the next one. So, now there were double the people waiting on the platform, and we didn’t get into the next train, but the one after. Luckily we had left early and the metro comes every five minutes, so it wasn’t a big deal.

When we arrived at the station for the stadium, the metro emptied and filled the entire metro station. It took us about fifteen minutes, taking tiny steps and squashed together like herded cattle, just to get out of the metro station, a feat that normally takes two or three minutes. But somehow, once we got out of the metro everyone dispersed very quickly and it didn’t seem crowded. Sure, there were lots of people, but the stadium is huge and well-organized with many entrances, so we only waited a few minutes to scan our tickets and enter the stadium. We were up in the nosebleeds, so after having our bags checked and scanning our tickets we scaled about five giant flights of stairs (which also had escaladors…fancy) and passed by several snack  bars (all of which had “cerveza mixta”, or a beer-lemonade drink also called clara which is pretty popular in Spain, as well as regular beer, drinks and snacks) to get to our seats. We were on the second to highest tier, behind the goal and to the left, and our seats were about four rows back from the first row…not bad for 40 euro, especially since with the “cultural subsidy” through the Stanford program we get back 20 euro.

The stairs leading down to our row (rows actually, there were twelve of us Stanford kds so we took up a lot of space) were very steep, so I was looking down for the first couple so I didn’t slip. When I looked up, I literally gasped. The stadium is huge, I’ve never been to a sporting even with even close to that number of people, and it’s so well lit that the field seems like it’s glowing green. We got to our seats (which were covered in sunflower seeds, because all Spaniards bring sunflower seeds to the games to eat, and a bocadillo to eat during half time, which we all had as well because our mamas españolas prepared them for us), took a whole bunch of pictures, and got ready for the game. We were too far to make out who was who (at least for me, but other people had better eyesight or were more familiar with the players and could tell who did what), but we could see the whole field perfectly, and the 4-1 victory was great because we had plenty of opportunities to celebrate goals and learn songs from the Madrileños surrounding us. One of my favorites (because it was catchy, intense, and had words that were easy to understand) went like this:

Lo lo lo lo lo lo lo ( several times to a tune…)

¡Hasta el final!

¡Vamos Real!

After the game, we went to Dubliners, an Irish pub, to watch the 49ers-Giants game. Unfortunately, the pub closed at 3:30 and wouldn’t stay open even though it was full of people (mainly Americans) watching the game. So, everyone spilled out the of the bar and roamed a few blocks into another bar which was staying open until the end of the game. The end of disappointing…but I’m in Madrid so it’s not a big deal.

lunes el 23 de enero

            Today was Lindsay’s birthday, and her mama española invited me to a special surprise birthday dinner at her house! In Spain, going to someone’s house is not nearly as common as in the US, so this was a pretty big gesture. Normally, Spaniards will meet at a café or bar, have a drink, and then go do whatever they’re going to do rather than meet up at someone’s house and all leave together like you frequently would in the US. Especially in a big city like Madrid where real estate is expensive and homes are smaller, and usually apartments, it’s more difficult to have space to entertain guests, so it’s much easier to go out. Also, when Spaniards go out, they don’t split the check. Even high school or college age people. For all of us in the program, who are so accustomed to bringing cash to a outings and squabble over the check to see who pays how much, how much to add for the tip, etc. Instead, people more or less fight over paying (not for the entire night, usually for a round, or for coffees, or for lunch for a friend or a few friends…it’s not like Spaniards are dropping 1,000 euro evey time they go out). Then the next time you go out, the other person pays, or the other person buys the next round of drinks. It’s much easier, so my friends and I have more or less adopted this custom when we go out. Also, if you are talking to a Spaniard and end up ordering another drink while talking to them, it’s very likely that they will be very insistent about paying. For example, I met someone who was from Spain but who had spent three months studying in San Diego in a café when I was ordering hot chocolate (surprising, I know) and we chatted for awhile and he literally would not let me pay for my drinks, saying “I invite you” which is the literal translation of the common Spanish phrase in the situation “te invito.”

            But I digress…back to Lindsay’s birthday dinner. We had paella, which was delicious. When you go to Spain, you can’t really go to any old place that has paella because some will be not very flavorful and touristy, so be careful about going to “paellerías” near touristy spots in Madrid, because they may not be as good (of course, they’ll probably still be good). For dessert we had a very yummy cake with thick whipped cream frosting and strawberries on top, and then after dessert we had “infusion” which I think is what herbal tea is called in Spain, because when I asked if it was tea Lindsay’s mama said no, but it’s made in the same way. I learned the Spanish phrase for “small world” during our conversation at dinner: “el mundo es un pa´ñuelo”, or “the world in a handkerchief.” Also, I got significantly lost for my first time so far (which I have to say is pretty good for me…I held out for a long time) on my way to her house, which is kind of near Plaza Mayor and in a different part of the city than where I live, so I wasn’t too familiar with it yet. But on the bright side, I had a perfect opportunity to hone my skills in asking and understanding directions in Spanish, and people in Madrid are, in my experience so far, very nice and willing to point you in the direction of a certain street.

martes el 24 de enero

            We had “ropa vieja”, a traditionally Cuban dish that is nevertheless very popular in Spain (although it is really only the idea of the dish that is the same, the flavors are pretty different), for lunch today. The idea is to make a delicious, heart and thick stew of leftovers, so ours was a garbanzo bean-based stew with lots of chorizo (yum!) and veggies. For “postre” dessert, which we eat after every meal and is always either fruit, yogurt, flan or natillas (kind of like pudding, but in Spain “pudding” is the Spanish word for bread pudding, which confused me a little the first time I discovered this), I had a fruit I had never even seen before, called cherimoya. It’s about the size of an apple, green on the outside and looks almost like an artichoke without leaves (google a picture, you’ll see  what I mean) and has a whole bunch of giant black seeds. It tastes good fairly mild and sweet, and the texture is somewhere between pear and pineapple and peach.

miércoles el 25 de enero

            Today I had art class in the Prado (no big deal…) and for some reason there were hordes of elementary school children taking field trips. They were so adorable, all in little matching uniforms and walking holding hands with their buddies, and when they sat down in front of a painting to listen to their teacher talk about it, they would sit it straight rows. Also, there were several art students in the Prado today with easels set up and painting replicas directly from the masterpieces of Velazquez, Titian, Raphael and El Greco.

Quick side note-in Spain, almost all names are changed so that they work in Spanish. Normally, this isn’t confusing, but it’s definitely put up a few road blacks in my art, bioethics or Spanish culture classes when the professor looks at us in disbelief as we all puzzle over a name until someone finally comes up with the English version and we all say “ohhh, ok, now I get it.” Just now, this happened to me in reverse. I learned the 16^th-century Venitian painter Titian as Tiziano (which is actually his real name, so English changed it this time) in my Spanish class, and I literally had to go online to find out what his name was in English so I wouldn’t confuse everyone here J

For la comida today we had (among other things) croquetas, which are so good homemade. You make a kind of masa with meat, let it get cold in the fridge and then egg-and-flour it and fry it in oil, and they are amazing…nice and crispy on the outside and soft and delicious on the inside. This is definitely one of the things I will be asking Mercedes to teach me how to make!

Tonight at ten we went to the same bar as last week to watch the second Real Madrid-Barcelona game. The bar was just as packed and crazy as the first time, with maybe even more singing and yelling. This time they tied, which means that Barcelona is ahead of Real Madrid in the league overall because they won by one last game L

jueves el 26 de enero

            For la comida today we had a kind of stew with potatoes and calamari (not fried or breaded, just cooked regularly but still in the rings, not streak form) and it was so good. As usual, we also had bread (which in Spain you use throughout the meal almost like an extra utencil, not before you start eating and not spread with butter, if spread with anything it’s cheese, and in my house we have a few different kinds of “queso cremoso” cream cheese to go on the bread for every meal) and salad with lettuce, olives, a little crab, tomatoes, hardboiled egg, onions (which Mercedes sometimes complains are too spicy, which kind of cracks me up because it’s true in Spain: an onion is pretty much as spicy as food gets, except for chorizo but that’s in a different way…never thought I’d say this but I’m starting to crave spicy food and I found a Thai restaurant that looks good right near the Prado and I think I’ll be having lunch there next Wednesday). Another thing about bread in Spain: most of the time (baring nice restaurants), it goes on the table and not on a plate. At first I would put it on the side of my main plate at meals in the house, but seeing that Mercedes, Merche and Mariu all set theirs on the table, I’ve been doing the same.

            I went to the doctor today since I’ve been sick for awhile. Mercedes accompanied me in case there was anything in Spanish that I would need help understanding, but the doctor spoke English so it was ok. In my experience so far, medicine is a lot cheaper in Spain than it is in the US, and in Spain you can get cough syrup with codeine without a prescription, but I think you need a prescription in the US. Also, a lot of things that would come in pill form in the US (like ibuprofen) here come in “sobres” or a powder that you then mix with a little water and drink (like a chupito: very quickly and with a chaser ready).

            After the doctor’s appointment I went to the Prado for the 6-8 free hours (which they have every day). It was really nice to just cruise around at my own pace and not be taking notes or straining to hear a lecture.

First week in Madrid (part 2)

Ok, so this makes us up to date except for the rest of orientation, January 8-11. Don't worry...they're coming!

sábado el 14 de enero

            This morning I mysteriously woke up at 9:30 and laid in bed awhile, then set out to the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium (where Real Madrid plays, and which I can get to by metro in 20 minutes…again, the metro is the best thing ever and I will miss it like crazy when I come back to Stanford). Our plan was to meet here at 12 (which sort of happened, although admittedly many people were still in recovery mode from the night out and send us texts saying they would definitely not be there on time) and buy tickets for the Real Madrid vs. Zaragoza game next Sunday. Turns out that we can’t but those tickets until Monday, so we popped into a café and had hot chocolate (for me, coffee for others) and chatted for a bit. After, I came back to my casa for la comida, which was delicious as always (and we had tinto de verano, sangria mixed with a Spanish version of club soda). I learned from Mercedes that clara (beer mixed with that club soda or lemon soda) is also a popular drink, and one of her favorites.

domingo el 15 de enero

            Today we met up with los estudiantes españoles (the Spanish students living in Madrid who volunteer their time to come talk to us so we can practice talking to Spanish people our age, and so that we can ask people our age where are the best places to go in Madrid) to go to El Rastro, a kind of flea market that has all different kinds of clothes, shoes, purses, accessories, as well as some electronics or other items, that takes up a massive section of a few streets branching off of Plaza Tirso de Molina. I bought a very cute new hat and two pairs of tights (because it’s quite fashionable in Madrid to have a dress and cute tights with boots or heels and a big coat over).

lunes el 16 de enero

            Flamenco again this morning…a blast as always! We’re getting into some more complicated heel/toe/clapping (and different kinds of clapping) patterns, so it’s fun to learn, and we sound great when we’re all synchronized (which admittedly does not happen very often…much to the amusement of our teacher). We also added on to the paso roble (pairs dance).

            For lunch we had paste with olives and chorizo, filetes de pollo and bread with sliced cheese (we have these last two with every meal…I am in heaven). My Women in Art class went well, we’re looking at women in religious art now, and we started out today with representations of Eve and their development over time. Many of the pieces are in the Prado, and Wednesday’s class we’re going to the Prado to have our hour and a half class there! I’m so stoked to have class in a world-famous museum, and I’m not sure if this excitement will begin to wane as the quarter progresses. Maybe it will be something like having classes in the quad…my first week at Stanford I marveled at the arcades and Memorial Church every time I walked through the quad, but by last quarter it just became another part of my home. Luckily, there are always hordes of camera-toting Asian tourists to remind me how lucky I am to be at such a beautiful place as Stanford, and there is no shortage of tourists in Madrid (and the Prado) to remind me how lucky I am to be there J

            This evening after my Bioethics class (which is also going really well, it’s a smallish class so it’s more interactive than I expected—the professor asks our opinions on a lot of issues and we have some pretty cool discussions, in Spanish of course), I went with my friend Byrd to a special bookstore about a 20 minute metro trip from the Instituto. We got a little lost finding the store (shocking, I know) and arrived two minutes after they closed. Feeling a little defeated, we decided to stop by a café before returning to the metro. They did not have hot chocolate, so instead we had wine (a perfectly reasonable substitution in my mind). We also met someone originally from Basque country who had studied in San Diego for three months and was now living in Madrid for six years. We chatted for awhile and he gave us a list of some of the best places to go out in Madrid (the places that won’t be full of tourists), so I’m excited to try those out. He also said we absolutely must visit San Sebastian while we’re here, which is perfect because I wanted to do that anyway, and now a weekend trip to Bilbao/San Sebastian is officially going on my calendar J

            Dinner with my family today was really fun, everyone was in a good mood (and I had a few glasses of wine right before, so I was pretty talkative) and Mercedes (mi mama Espanola) showed us a book of common Spanish phrases translated directly into English. One of my favorite was “no me tocas a las narices” which is something you say when a friend is nagging you about something but they do that thing to (why didn’t you call me back? Hey, you didn’t call me back over the weekend, no me tocas a las narices), but literally means “don’t touch my noses.”

martes el 17 de enero

            This morning I went back to the bookstore (which is so cute…it had several floors but it a little cramped and has books on every surface), and this time it was open, so I could get the books I needed. I think I might go back sometime in the future just to browse at their books, because there were some very interesting ones about, for example, the political situation in the US written from a Spanish perspective. The US appears a decent amount in the news here, and it’s really interesting to see how my country is viewed from the outside.

Today we went to the bus station to buy tickets to Salamanca for Friday, and while I was waiting for everyone to arrive so we could buy tickets together, I stopped into the café (Rodilla, a chain, there are tons in Madrid). This chain does not serve hot chocolate (the nerve…) and I don’t really like their tea, but I really wanted a hot drink. So, I drank my first whole cup of coffee! It was only a little cup of café con leche (with mostly leche) and I am wired…I think I need to be careful with coffee from now on because I was definitely not expecting this strong of an effect. It is, however, giving me the energy to speed write  this blog at the moment, so you should all be glad I manned-up and finally drank coffee. I bought my tickets to Salamanca with friends, so Friday at 10:30am we will take the bus there for a day/night in Salamanca J

I just finished lunch and am feeling much better…maybe this is a lesson that I should eat along with coffee? I’m having to learn to drink all over again! Anyway, for lunch today we had sopa de lentajas (lenil soup) with chicken, salad, bread, and a mandarin for dessert. I’m pleased to report that I officially like mandarins, so I’m going to have to try oranges next and hope that they’ve grown on me as well.

Tonight for dinner we had small whitefish pan-fried with the bones left in, which I enjoyed immensely but had a slight fail at de-boning the first fish, so Mercedes (after smiling at my efforts) deboned the second one for me. We also had patatas fritas, ensalada con jaiba, pan y queso and for dessert, fresas con nata.  We always watch TV with el almuerzo and la cena, as there is a little TV that sits on top of the refrigerator. In the afternoon (around 2:30 or 3) we usually watch the news while we eat, and Mercedes and Mariu comment on all the goings on and do their best to fill Rachel and I in on whatever is happening (as it frequently has to do with Spanish politics in much more depth than I am familiar with), although the partially sunken cruise ship Costa Concordia (which has had significant amount of time on the news for the past few days) needed no explaining. We also eat those meals together: Mercedes (mi mama Española), Merche (her daughter, 30) and Mariu, (her niece, 25, who is often not there because she finishing her medical training and frequently has “guardia”, very long shifts at the hospital when she can’t make it home for meals).

I also learned a useful Spanish phrase at dinner today, “tu cara me suena” which basically means “you look familiar”. This came up because we were watching the talk show we usually watch at la cena (around 9:30-10pm) called El Hombrigo (the anthill). It brings in famous people and has them do a bunch of silly activities as well as talk about whatever they do, and today, one of the activities was called “tu cara me suena” and the point was to slap out the rhythom to a song on the other person’s face and have them guess what song it was (literal translation of suena, the conjugated form of sonar, meaning to sound). I’m pretty proud because this is probably the first Spanish play on words that I understand :)

First Week in Madrid (part 1)

First of all...sorry this is a little out of order, I have to go back and finish writing the 8th-11th, but they will be out!

jueves el 12 de enero

Today was our second official day of classes! I had my Spanish class, which has about ten students (perfect) and is at 9am (less than ideal). But, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Spanish is my only class…which means my weekend begins at 10:30 Thursday morning! Of course, part of those weekends will be spent struggling through textbooks in Spanish, but even that will be exciting because I’ll be in a café or library or plaza in Madrid J Most of the Spanish class today was a tour of the Instituto, and since I haven’t said much about it yet, I’ll give you a quick summary. The building was built in the late 1800s by an American couple who came to Spain (eventually settling in Madrid) as missionaries right after Spain stopped being an officially Catholic country. They realized there was a need for women’s education, and founded a women’s college, which eventually grew in size and popularity enough to merit the construction of a large, handsome building in Madrid. Today, the Instituto Internacional is home to the Madrid campus of several US universities’ abroad program (including Boston University, USC, Syracuse and University of Albany) and offers American English classes to Spanish students. The building is 4 floors with a basement (which is the library). Stanford has half the fourth floor for offices, a computer lab and mini-library for the students, and a classroom. My classes, which are all in Spanish and taught by professors born and raised in Spain, are all on either the third or fourth floors. There is a (overpriced) cafeteria on the main floor, which I plan to avoid unless I get an insatiable craving for bagels (as this is one of the few places in Madrid where they can be found). I am pleased to say that I have been able to keep my usually insatiable craving for delicious hot chocolate at bay by stopping in to the innumerable cafes all over Madrid. Since we eat only a very small breakfast (a coffee, or for me tea, and toast with maybe olive oil and tomato paste or a little turkey or cheese) and don’t have lunch (the main meal of the day) until around 3, it is quite common for Spaniards to take multiple trips to a café between meals for a warm drink and a snack. Needless to say, this is one piece of Spanish culture to which I have no problem adjusting.

After Spanish class, Laura (who is one of the fantastic staff of the BOSP Madrid program) took us on a tour of the barrio (neighborhood) surrounding el Instituto. Many cafes, bars and restaurants, a great place for cheap shopping (where I will be returning later to get a hairdryer), pharmacies, markets and a mini-grocery, stores to buy our textbooks and other school supplies, a post office and many others are all within a few blocks.

I’m absolutely loving living in a city in general and Madrid in particular. It’s only been two days, but I already know that when I go back to Stanford I will miss the convenience of the metro, having everything close by, and always having people out on the streets. It’s energizing to walk through Madrid, but not overwhelming. I also bought a prepaid Spanish cell phone to communicate with people here in Spain, which will be very helpful…leaving people facebook messages and hoping they get them in time is not the best method of communication! Luckily, I’ve had a summer of practice in communicating things like “let’s meet at this hostel in Rome between 3 and 4pm,” so a week without cell phones where everyone lives in the same city and goes to the same place for class every day is really not that bad.

I had la comida en casa with mi familia Española today. As always, we were watching TV (usually talk shows or news) and commenting on what we saw (mainly Mercedes and Merte, as Mariu was working a shift at the hospital and much of the Spanish news goes over Rachel’s and my heads…not only because of the language, but also because of the many intricacies in the Spanish governmental, social, economic, social/cultural, etc. situation that we don’t understand).

viernes el 13 de enero

Normally we wouldn’t have class on Friday, but since we were still traveling on Monday, we mode up those classes for this week on Friday. So, I had flamenco again (still awesome, today we did more steps and learned the paso roble, a traditional Spanish dance done in pairs, and I had my flamenco skirt and shoes which makes dancing A LOT more fun) and bioethics again, which was pretty intense because our professor (who is a kick-ass woman MD PhD) asked us how we would tell our pregnant patient that she had cancer of the uterus (all in Spanish of course) and, for the first time since the professor was sick on Wednesday, Women in Art: a case study in the Madrid museums. Not going to lie, the second part of the title was a big reason I’m taking the class (along with the fact it covers two GERs, and since the bioethics class counts for my HumBio major this quarter is going to be surprisingly productive graduation-wise). I discovered today that every Wednesday except for two during the quarter will take place in one of the major museums in Madrid, usually the Prado and also the Reina Sophia and the Thyssen. Coolest class ever?

In the evening, we met up with “los estudiantes españolas” to chat with them to practice our Spanish and to ask them all the best places to go and, of course, learn more colorful new words in Spain Spanish. We went on a pretty long walk through major areas in Madrid, starting out in Puerta del Sol (I live a 5 minute walk from here…which is one of the best locations in the city), walking part of Gran Via, going to Templo de Debod (which is super romantic and offers stunning views of Madrid) and checking out the Plaza de España, among other places. After this, my roommate Rachel and I headed back to our casa to cenar with Mercedes, Merche and Mariu. As always, dinner was delicious (we had jamon serrano YUM) and the conversation was interesting, always learning new words and tidbits about Spanish culture and current events, especially the Duchess of Alba de Tormes, who has more recognized titles than any other noble, including the queen of England.

Tonight we went out to El Tigre, a bar in Chueca (the gay district in Madrid which is super fun and trendy and where I happen to live…so this bar is literally a block away from my casa) that serves huge delicious plates of tapas with their drinks. The drinks are also yummy, although quite sweet (the sangria is served with a layer of sugar on the bottom). After we went to Moondance and Joy, two clubs just off Sol. This was super convenient for me, because it was a quick 5-minute walk home at the end of the night. The metro and buses run from 6am-1am, and there are also very safe night buses that run from 1am-6am, so even if I didn’t live close it would be ok. We also discovered Chocolateria San Gines, a café that serves chocolate con churros (among other things…but really, if you have chocolate con churros you don’t need anything else) at 5:30am.

Arrival and Orientation Part 1

Thursday January 5

~Los Angeles, New York City, Madrid~

            I began the day leaving the house at 4am on my way to LAX. I boarded the 6:30am plane from LAX to JFK and had a pleasantly uneventful five-hour flight to New York. Once there, I killed time during a long layover and took the 8pm flight to Madrid. This plane was full of Spaniards speaking Spanish and for the first time today, I really felt like I was traveling to Spain. I fell asleep near the beginning of the flight, and when I woke up, I was in Madrid!

viernes el 8 de enero

~Madrid, Andalucía~

            I met Lindsay, whose flight arrived earlier, outside customs and we had a quick snack (bocadillo de jamón) and hopped a taxi to el Instituto Internacional in Madrid. Here, the Stanford program has about 2/3 of the top floor, which is where we will be taking our classes. But today, we dropped off our luggage and rearranged its contents so that we had clothes for four days in our small suitcase. This was a necessary preparation for our orientation trip…which began tonight! I arrived in the morning, and little by little more Stanford students arrived until all thirty of us were seated in the main room on the first floor, small suitcases packed and ready for the trip. We had a quick orientation, where the program directors introduced themselves and we re-signed the Spanish-only language pledge. You can probably figure out what we were pledging when we signed, but it is interesting that the Madrid program is the only BOSP (Bing Overseas Studies Program) program with a local language-only pledge. I would like to point out that I am not breaking this pledge now first of all because I can type without speaking and more importantly because communicating with friends and family is one of the three exceptions to the pledge, the other two being an emergency situation or if your internship required is (such as teaching English).

Today is el Día de los Tres Reyes, or Day of the Three Kings. It is a national holiday, and as such most stores in Madrid are closed. This is not a problem for madrileños, however, because today everyone opens their Christmas presents, families gather together in their homes to eat, drink and celebrate, and children play with their new toys all day. Also, many eat a traditional cake, called a roscón. Our program directors decided to share this tradition with us, so after the short orientation and before boarding our bus, we each had a slice of the Spanish version of a Mardi Gras king’s cake. The roscón is still in a ring shape, but it is more of a sweet bread sliced in half and filled with flavored cream in the middle. We had three cakes: one vanilla, one chocolate y nata (just the cream flavor). Like in a king’s cake, there is a plastic toy (instead of a baby) hidden in one slice of the cake, and whoever gets this toy has good luck. I didn’t get the toy…but I think I’m still pretty lucky.

We then embarked on a four-hour bus ride south, to a hotel about 45 minutes outside of Granada. At the beginning of the ride (before everyone passed out from jet lag and general lack of sleep due to traveling), Santi (the program director) taught us a really cute song in Spanish that you can sing in your head to help you fall asleep (like counting sheep):

Un elefante se balanceaba

En una tela de araña

Como veía que resistía

Fue a buscar otro elefante

Dos elefantes…

Around eleven, we arrived at Hotel Oasis and immediately had dinner. Pan (bread), ensaladilla (salad with tomatoes, egg, onions, bell peppers and olives shared by the table without individual plates), espinacas (sautéed spinach), somadillo (a pork dish with sides of French fries and veggies), and flan. And, of course, red wine. I was exhausted and incredibly full by the end of the meal, and was relieved to get up to my room, use the WiFi (weefee) for a bit, take a shower (finally!) and go to sleep in a real bed.

sabado el 7 de enero

~Granada, Nerja~

            Today we met for a quick breakfast of a coffee (hot chocolate for me, of course) and pan tostado topped with a tomato-based spread and olive oil. Then, we loaded all of our luggage and ourselves back on the bus around nine and drove to Granada. Granada, which is in Andalucía, the region in the south of Spain, was the last stronghold of the Ottomans in Spain. The Ottomans spent a total of eight centuries in Spain, so there is a strong Arabic influence on Andalucía which is particularly evident in the architecture style of Granada, especially the typically Arabic horseshoe arch. Granada was conquered by los reyes católicos, Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1492 (big year for Spain, and the rest of the Western world), so there are few modern Arabic influences and few Muslims living there today. First we walked through the barrio Albycín, which is one of the oldest regions of the city and has the typical white houses (called carmenes) that many people think of when they imagine Spain. Pomegranates are pictures or carved all over this region and others because “Granada” means pomegranate in Spanish.  I had a few moments of nostalgia while walking through the city when we passed points I remembered well from my three week study abroad in Granada four years ago. The plaza with the statue of Christopher Columbus kneeling at the feet of King Ferdinand, the artful graffiti on the walls, the street in the Albycín where every door is a tea and hookah bar, the black and once-white tile squares covering the sidewalks and plazas in the city center, the river Rhonda and Calle Rhonda: a main street in Granada two blocks away from my Spanish host family’s house…I knew that I would recognize much of the city, but I was surprised by the strength of the emotions the city evoked. I can’t help but wonder how I will feel about Madrid when I come back after having lived there for three months!

            After our walk around the city, we visited the Alhambra. It was my second visit, and I could go another twenty times and still not be tired of it. The Alhambra (the Spanish version of the Arabic phrase “the red”, which likely described not the modern-day reddish color of the exterior walls—in its day the Alhambra was painted white—but for a particular rey—the Ottoman ruler in the Alhambra elected to use the Spanish title for king rather than a more typical Arabic title of sultan—who, by some fluke, was a redhead) was like a city within (on the border of) the city of Granada. The Arabs who ruled the area for 800 years constructed the Alhambra in their Iberian capital Granada as a living place for the king and his family, as an administrative center for government, and as a military base and easily-defendable (as it is located on top of a hill) fortress. So, the Alhambra has different regions (basically a progressively more private series of buildings with courtyards between) with very different styles and levels of detail, as fitting for their respective purposes. The most impressive by far were the private areas for the royal family. Following Arabic (Islamic) tradition, all the decoration on the walls consists of geometric or floral patterns and Arabic calligraphy. The lower halves of most of these walls were covered in brilliantly colored tiles in geometric patterns, and my favorite design feature by far of the Alhambra (while the others are still fantastic) are what look like marble relief carvings, but were actually made by grinding marble to make a paste and pouring it into mold the size of the entire upper section of the wall to make a beautiful and incredibly impressive decoration. For a culture accustomed to the desert, water and greenery are images of paradise, and the Alhambra reflects this belief. Each courtyard has fountains, reflecting pools, fragrant flowers, herbs, and fruit trees, and shrubs and trees gardened carefully by the current Alhambra staff to create walls of green leaves. One of the most striking is the courtyard of the lions, which was closed the last time I was here, and was under construction when I came and was still beautiful. The Alhambra also has expansive gardens, which were quite abundant and green even though it’s winter…I would love to see them in the spring.

            From the Alhambra (especially the highest tower in the fortress section) you can see the entire city of Granada and the Sierra Nevada mountain range (the original one), and today it was covered in snow. Although Granada is in the warmer south of Spain, its altitude is much greater than that of Madrid, so it gets cold in the winter. Also, on the top of the highest tower, there is a bell. There is a legend that says the woman who climbs the tower and rings the bell will get married within a year, and while there were many furtive glances at the bell, nobody tried to scale the tower while I was there J

            After the Alhambra, we boarded the bus and began our drive to Nerja, a popular beach destination on the Mediterranean for tourists. Especially, as we discovered once we arrived, for old British tourists. The views of the ocean from our hotel were fantastic, and if I left my balcony (yes, balcony) door open, I could lay in bed and listen to the waves crashing on the beach. We ate dinner in the hotel, and afterwards some friends and I went to a bar and had tinto de verano (a kind of sparkling sangria, very tasty) and made friends with the bartender, who gave us all free shots of a mystery (but thankfully yummy and not highly alcoholic) liqueur.

Also, since writing this blog is the only time I have been “speaking” English, I actually find myself thinking the some of the things I write in Spanish before I write them in English. I haven’t started dreaming in Spanish yet…but it can only be a matter of time!

¡Bienvenidos!

Shocking though it may seem, I do not know how to ride a bike. As a soon to be junior at Stanford, I have spent two full years walking countless miles across campus and refused multiple offers (and botched several attempts...sorry to those involved) to teach me how to ride a bike. I'm not sure exactly why I, normally a logical person, continue to avoid the most efficient mode of campus transportation. But no matter the reason, I enjoy living the pedestrian life.

I have wanted to study abroad for years. The summer after my sophomore year in high school, I had the opportunity to spent three weeks living with a family in Granada, Spain, and ever since I have been itching to go back. This summer during Semester at Sea I spent four days in Barcelona, and the moment we left I began counting down the days until I would go back to Spain. Needless to say, this quarter has been much anticipated!

I will be living with a Spanish family in Madrid until March 18, speaking only Spanish (except to communicate with friends and family who don't speak Spanish!) and taking my classes in Spanish at the Instituto Internacional, where Stanford's Madrid mini-campus is located.

 I almost can't believe this is actually happening...but the first thing I do when I wake up after having a great dream is tell is to someone. So here I am, sharing my dream with you day by day.