Torpedo Hungry

She’s not your grandmother’s southern belle. Well, actually, that is exactly what she is. Hillary was raised to be the perfect southern belle, along with fulfilling every position your grandma should. She is a great cook. She sews and knits. She even sends thank you notes on personalized stationary. Yes, she is a throwback to the good old days when the south had hopes of winning the War of Northern Aggression to assert their right to secede from the Union.

Hillary and my story starts back about a year ago. We met in CEE 3610 Introduction to Transportation Engineering with Professor Turnquist through our mutual friend Mo(town). We suffered through most of that class together ignorant of the fact that we would be spending the next year studying together. Several weeks into the class Hillary asks me, “Are you doing the Santander program next year?”

“Yeah, you too?” I responded.

That pretty much ended the conversation. We talked a little bit about our coming year in Spain, but very little like, what do we need for our visa application, where are we going to live, etc. Like in the case of Caitlyn, the first time we actually hung out was upon my first night arriving in Spain.

Also like Caitlyn (since they share a flat), she subjected me to Desperate Housewives at the beginning of the year, but repaid me with some delicious food. As I noted before, we are trying to compose a list of why Caitlyn is useful, but Hillary, hands down, wins her place in the gang with her food. She makes killer falafel, pumpkin and apple pies that shame my mom (sorry mom), pancakes that are just downright delicious, and she even has come close to mastering the Spanish tortilla (potato omelet for all you posers). She also is a good travel planner (perhaps rivaling me at times) with her organization and research. And while I did say that Caitlyn is good for schadenfreude, Hillary takes the cake with this, too.

When we look back fondly on our past trips, it is usually at some random trouble I get into because of how much I stick out for being a blonde male, or for Hillary’s series of unfortunate disasters. Yes, she entertains us endlessly with her tripping, her slips of the tongue, and her spilling food all over herself. One of the best memories of this year so far is thanks to Hillary. I remember being bent over, crying from so much laughter as Hillary tried to put the broken slats of the bed she just broke back together. Not wanting to pay for the damages, she instead brought the evidence to Africa to dispose of.

Another, equally ego damaging occurrence happened when we were on a bridge of Venice, wanting a picture of all three of us. Sheepishly, Hillary approached a passerby, politely asking if she could take our picture standing in front of the canal. She thought quickly on her feet and soon stammered, “Uhh… the train…” and ran off. We all knew she had no train to catch. No, Hillary was one of the first people in Venice to get rejected for taking a picture. Even simple tasks like eating a Nutella filled doughnut end disastrously with Nutella covering her coat, sleeve, and umbrella.

Eventually she took on the name Torpedo, a combination of the words torpe (Spanish for clumsy) and Fredo (the infamously worst brother from The Godfather). Probably the best example of her clumsiness is one of Caitlyn’s favorite stories. One day, we were walking up the stairs to Geo Lab. Trouble ensues as she misses the step, trips, and plants her face directly into Caitlyn’s ass as Jon, a Spanish kid from our class, watches on. She ends up hugging Caitlyn’s rear to prevent her face from meeting the step. Oh yes, she is quite the graceful lady.

Guapa Caitlyn

Halfway into the year, I am now realizing most of you don’t really know any of the other people I mention in my blog apart from perhaps the occasional “Hillary and I did this” or “Caitlyn went to the store and ate all the All Bran she could find.” Seeing as I am all the way caught up with my travel updates and don’t have more travel plans for awhile, I think I will start profiling each of the important players of my study abroad experience. Without further ado, I present you with: Santander’s Most Wanted.

CAITLYN DEWITT

My first installment was spurred by some comments left on Facebook by Caitlyn DeWitt. As we are apt to do, we exchanged some put downs and empty physical threats. In the end, I declared I would write my next blog entry Caitlyn is a dumb whore because… Now don’t get me wrong, we all like each other (mostly) and we get along very well. All of our put downs are in jest and form an integral part of our peculiar group dynamic. At the end of it all, Caitlyn being a dumb whore and I having no social skills are as serious as a very large bruise, it looks brutal from the outside, but look at it from the inside and there is no internal bleeding.

My first encounter with Caitlyn was brief. People we meet traveling or through Erasmus will sometimes ask us if we knew each other before coming. Typically we say no. This isn’t really the case. I met Caitlyn at a meeting for this program probably a few months before actually coming to Spain. What I remember is shaking her hand upon introducing myself. If any of you watch 30 Rock, you may recall from a very recent episode that a handshake conveys a lot of information about the other person. Caitlyn, whether she remembers or not, gave me a dead fish hand shake. It left me disappointed. In the end, I wrote her up to a dead fish.

Later a few of my friends (actually, Audrey is the worst, not really someone I want to call my friend) told me that Caitlyn and I were doing the same program and that they knew her from being her sorority sister or such and such. Great! I thought. I love sorority girls. (To be fair, I know many sorority girls and they are all very cool, although, for some reason, I assume all of the ones I don’t know to have come straight out of The House Bunny or The Girls Next Door.)

Well, I would say Caitlyn and my first meeting (that counted) was here in Santander. The three other Cornell kids met me on my first night in Santander and we went out to some bars and clubs for a little bit of welcome fun. I don’t recall anything that stuck out about our first encounter, but a week later I started going over to her and Hillary’s apartment. What did we do? Well, they subjected me to watching Desperate Housewives, but also fed me.

Pretty soon after I found myself at their apartment pretty much every day or every other day. Not having any other friends forced me to make the most out of these ones. Well, I found out quickly that Caitlyn had the same humor as me. We found ourselves muttering the same things at the same time after which I would shout at her, “ GET OUT OF MY HEAD!” We went out partying together, and one of the first weeks of class we met up with the Spanish kids. I promptly told them, “Ella es facil, sabes?” Despite my knowledge that she is indeed not (wholly) a whore, this idea permeated our friendship.

Hopefully you are starting to get the idea of what kind of friendship this is.

But enough about our friendship, what you should really know is how she acts. Caitlyn, for one, is very easily entertained. She will say a joke (usually aloud, but really only she cares), she will be the only one who finds it funny, she will continue to laugh (hard) at her own joke until she realizes she is the only one laughing. She then finds this hilarious and proceeds to laugh harder. A typical joke of hers is the “That’s what she said.” In high school this was a favorite. I repeat, in high school. Now, I am always a fan of a creative and very filthy That’s what she said, but that being said, Caitlyn goes for the easy ones.

“This is so hard.”

“That’s what she said.”

“I’m coming.”

“THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID!”

She says it so quickly, as if she is afraid somebody is going to steal this joke from her. We will even phrase things as a set up for her, and not realizing, she jumps at the easy bait we set for her.

In addition to her love of that’s what she said jokes, she is also a fan of most things that can be taken sexual. She has a filthy mind to match her filthy mouth. We all agree (including her) that she is not a lady.

She drinks like it’s her job (well, she is a sorority sister…), she sleeps twice a day, and every day eats enough All Bran cereal to feed a small (pygmy) family for a week. When the grocery store is out of All Bran, she spirals into a hole of depression and disorientation. Her biggest fear is not that the world will run out of All Bran, but rather that we pour it all out the window in front of her. When planning trips, she takes the back seat. She will complain when something is not to her liking, but usually will not do anything about it.

She has some good qualities (I am sure of it). We are just trying to make a list. What we have determined is that she is fantastic for schadenfreude, her missteps are our little pleasures. She is our social chair (yes, because she can’t leave all of her sorority tendencies behind) and plans events to get us friends and ultimately out of the house. She can make a mean chicken parm and loves the Godfather.

And that is it.

Oh, she likes to make up nick names for people, too. The usually end in bunny. Like smart bunny. Or cooking bunny. Or hungry bunny.

Bologna & Milan Pics

Northern Italy 2

Bologna, Italy

As a man gently kisses my neck in the basement of an unmarked building hosting an anti-fascist concert, I try to figure out what series of decisions I made that led to this highly unexpected situation. Let me rewind a little.

I had heard about couch surfing way before leaving for Europe, probably from reading up on travel blogs about cheap travel. My mom also suggested it. I kind of wrote it off for a while, thinking, there has to be some catch. Also, I didn’t want to try it alone and had never met someone who had actually experienced it. That is, until I met Ross in Monaco. Ross raved about his experiences with couch surfing. He loved it and actually got me excited about it. I always recognized the merits of couch surfing, you get to meet somebody who loves interacting with travelers and they can tell you all the great things about their city (not to mention the money you save), I guess I was just hesitant. Well, I finally thought I was ready and dusted off my old Couch Surfing profile and started contacting hosts. I tried to get hosts all through Spain and Italy, but we were only lucky enough to be accepted in Bologna and Milan. Disappointed with Spain, we were very excited to start our experiences.

To be entirely honest, I had no idea what to expect from my first surfing experience, but as a large bearded Italian man approached us in the Piazza de Nettuno, we were about to find out. Four of the seven people who lived in the apartment we stayed at walked us back to their place. We chatted about ourselves, shared short stories about our travels as we wound through streets lined with arcades and red and yellow buildings. We made it to their apartment, which was admittedly much like many other college places. It was dirty. It was political. It was cheap. If frats cared more about anti-facism and spoke Italian, perhaps that is what you would get.

Well, Merko, the aforementioned large bearded Italian guy, guided around Bologna a bit, showing us this beautiful library and parts of campus. He brought us inside his faculty building to introduce us to some of his friends. One of the people he introduced us to was my new, heroin addicted friend. Although I never caught his name, I did find out a few interesting things about him. Introducing himself, “Hi. I used to teach at NYU… That is, until they fired me… Because I did too much heroin.” Oh god. “Yea, but now I am attending lectures put on by Johns Hopkins. I hope that if I show interest they will hire me. So I can make lots of money… and buy lots of heroin… just kidding.” No, no you are not joking. You want to do heroin.

Anyways, we leave our new acquaintances and walk through Bologna. We were told that there could be a protest going on, so we go buy some gelato and head towards the square to watch the scene go down. Not much happens so we head back to the apartment.

The next day we get all of our site seeing of Bologna in. We climb the tower that Bologna is famous for. We walk through a market and relax in the park. We even climbed all the way up to San Luca’s Cathedral, like 4 kilometers uphill, to find out that it closed a half hour before. Oh well.

On our way back to the apartment we pick up some makings for an Italian feast. Bread, tomatoes, mozzarella, pesto and wine. I cannot get enough of this! We ate like kings for like three euros. I could get used to this!

After dinner and killing the bottles of wine, we meet up with Merko. This was the start of the adventurous night. First, he takes us to a poetry reading in this bar/café. Everything was in Italian (expectedly) including the anti fascist posters on the wall and the ramblings about the pope and the terrors of capitalism. Finally a guy starts to play guitar and is actually pretty good. Apparently that is our cue to leave. Damn, I was getting into this.

Our next stop of the night is the previously mentioned basement. We enter through an unmarked door guarded by two guys. We head directly into the basement where they make us fill out paperwork. I think I may have joined the anti fascist army or became part of a cult. Either way, just a bit strange. In the other room there is a concert going on. The band is actually pretty good. They are play very upbeat rock and crooning their Italian, getting the crowd pumped up. Eventually their set ends and a DJ starts taking over. It is some time after this point that my friend the heroin addict shows up. All of us are dancing and enjoying our time. Then, the heroin guy picks me up, lifting me and spinning me in the air. Okay, strange, but nothing to be concerned about. Later, he tells me and the girls that we should come over later.

“Ah, no we can’t, we have to catch a train early in the morning.”

“That is okay, I could drive you.”

“No, they are hosting us, we should stick with them.”

“Come on, just for a little bit.”

“Um, no, thanks, we are tired.”

A little later I thought he was going in to whisper into my ear or shout to get over the music. No. As you know, he softly kissed my neck. Oh, I forgot to mention, he must have been in at least his 30s. Now, I was uncomfortable. We quickly found Merko and told him we were ready to leave. He told us to wait while he settled some things with his friend. Did I mention they had all been drinking since around 6 and his friend was completely trashed? He was belligerent, yelling at people in the street and walking in front of cars.

Well, we went outside to wait for Merko. Afraid our heroin buddy would follow us outside, we walked to a nearby piazza to wait for our host. On our walk back to the apartment my host told me, “Oh, the guy told me he wanted to invite you over to stay the night. But I forgot to tell you, I am sorry. But I don’t think it would have been a good idea. Because if you sleep there, for sure he fuck you.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it Merko, we gathered as much!”

The rest of the night I laid in bed praying to god that the man would not walk in the apartment and peek his head into our room (The previous night he was over at the house. Not only did he know where the apartment was, he knew which room I was sleeping in!).

Still in one piece the next day, we made it to the train station and boarded our train to Milan. That was certainly enough excitement for one city. I hoped the next couch surfing experience was different.

Milan, Italy

Right away we could tell that Milan was much different from any other part of Italy we had previously visited. Rome was big, but still had very old buildings and monuments. Milan, on the other hand, was modern and cosmopolitan. It had sky scrapers and a comprehensive metro (that was burdened by having to dig around Roman ruins at every turn). Our next host directed us towards the Duomo (arigato, Mr. Roboto) to meet up. We take the metro and upon leaving the station we are greeted with a spectacular, imposing white cathedral contrasting against the blue sky. I had heard from a lot of people the Milan wasn’t that nice. Well, I certainly was impressed so far.

We meet up with Andrea, our host, and he walks us to a great restaurant. We eat padines with his friends and after he tours us around Milan a bit, going inside the Duomo and showing us the galleries and the castle. In the galleries there is this bull tiled in the ground that if you spin around on his balls with your heel three times you will have good luck. We all gave it a go. He even bought us gelato! He was definitely feeding an unhealthy addiction.

Later we split up for dinner. That night we finally ate out at a decent restaurant, and the food was fantastic. I got some butter and sage ravioli. De puta madre.

After dinner we met Andrea and one of his friends at a bar for karaoke. Besides the 5 euro beers (seriously! 5 euro?) we really enjoyed ourselves. We even went up to the stage to sing a great rendition of Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now.

The next day we went out to explore more by ourselves. A friend of mine told me we must go on the roof of the Duomo, saying the view was fantastic. We heard that you could see the Alps on a clear day. Well, it was not a clear day and we were turned away for mass (one of the girls was wearing shorts with tights) so we did not see the view from the roof. We did, however, see a good bit of the castle and its museums, including a temporary exhibit about Michelangelo and his architecture. One thing I noticed about Michelangelo, he did not finish anything. He would start construction on one building, get bored, and go start something new. Yes, even one of the greatest minds in history had trouble finishing things. I feel like that is a good sign if nothing else.

Fun fact about Milan, they have the Last Supper stowed away in some random building next to a church. The church does not own the painting apparently, but it does get a lot of visitors because they think it does (including us). Actually, it is quite difficult to see Da Vinci’s famous piece. You have to book months in advance, it costs 8 euros (for only one painting, come on, in Europe, all art is free!) and you go in at an allotted time (I think). Needless to say, we did not see the painting, but we did see the building where the painting is kept. I think that counts as at least trying.

Another fun fact about Milan (and perhaps Italy), many of the young people have had enough with the current government. They are upset with the image it gives the country. This was evident by the large number of people who gathered to protest. Apparently 1 million protested in Rome, and hundreds of thousands protested elsewhere around the country. So many countries protesting!

Well, we saw just about everything we expected from Milan, so that night we stayed in and watched a movie with a few of Andrea’s friends and one of his friends’ really nice apartments. We just relaxed, drank beer and ate pizza. What a great way to end the trip!

We flew home the next day and had a several hour layover in Madrid. Iona met us for lunch. It was fantastic getting to see Iona after six months and the Indian food we ate was equally delicious.

I believe this now catches me up to essentially the present.

Venice Pics

Venice

Venice, Italy

Hillary and I joked that the perfect weather we had been having would be ruined when Caitlyn arrived. Our first day in Venice was so foggy you couldn’t see the buildings on San Marco nor could you see across the canal. Thanks Caitlyn.

In attempt to take advantage of our days in Venice despite the crappy weather, we walked through a few of the museums and buildings. Fog could not stop us.

Well, it kind of did. All of the gondolas were stopped. Even the trains were stalled. We had to take a bus to the island. We finished going through the museums. We ate our gelato and our falafel and went to bed early, hoping the following day would bring us better weather. Maybe we would even be able to see Venice the next day!

Luckily, it paid off. We woke up refreshed to the sun and blue skies! What a difference the weather can make! We took a gondola taxi across the major canal (for only 50 cents! Pro tip: real gondolas cost 80 euro, take the gondola taxis!) and wondered at the buildings of San Marco Square and the Rialto Bridge. The city could really be beautiful when the weather permitted. We spent a good part of the day looking for Venetian carnival masks so we could wear them for a Mardi Gras party and just enjoying meals by the water. By the way, Carnival must be big in Venice. Some of the masks cost upwards of 300 euros and there were really ornate costumes for rent and for sale that sent you back to another (very classy) era.

We also agreed that we would reenact The Merchant of Venice, but promptly forgot. But you might have thought to yourself, jeez, Shakespeare wrote a lot about Italy. He must have loved travelling there. Well, it turns out it is most likely he never set foot in Italy. Good job, Shakespeare, fooling the masses and romanticizing places you never have even visited. Well played, well played.

Verona & Padova Pics

I forgot to mention, we saw Galileo's house in Padova! Apparently he used to teach at the university.

Northern Italy 1

So I am just over two weeks behind on blogging. I think today I could catch up to the present. Yes, I have really only updating about my travels and not my day to day life, but seriously, day to day life is just that. It really doesn’t change too much from Cornell to Santander. I go to class. The classes are sometimes interesting. The classes are sometimes excruciating. I go home. I eat. I study. I procrastinate. I catch up on the goings on of the world (to some extent). I repeat. Sometimes interesting events punctuate life in Cantabria, but that is usually the travelling.

For example, second semester started this past Monday. I missed that day as I was still travelling, but apparently a lot of other students did too. The next day I found a few new students in our class. Two kids from Poland, Michael and Kasha, and John from the UK. We had them over for chicken parm, cornbread and apple pie and brought them around Santander a little bit. They are really interesting people and I look forward to getting to know them better. Kasha told me she likes how we Americans speak. She said that she feels like she is in the movies when we talk around her. The longer I stay in Europe, the more I realize that Europeans pretty much base most of what they think about Americans on what they see in movies and TV shows. I am commonly asked if the college frat parties are anything like Animal House or if we all have our own houses like they show in the movies. When I think about it, although movies are usually exaggerated, they are sometimes a good example of American culture.

Well, back to adventure updates.

Italy

The first two days that Hill and I (and later Caitlyn) were in Venice we actually stayed off the island in Mestre (or Margherita?) and took day trips to nearby cities. The first day we headed off to Verona, home of Romeo and Juliet.

Verona, Italy

Well, as I just said, Verona is the setting of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Hill and I thought it would be a great place to start our travels in Italy, saving our site seeing of Venice for when Cailtyn joined us. To our amazement, train travel in Italy was surprisingly straight forward and relatively cheap (way better than France as far as I could tell). We hopped on one of the many frequent trains to Verona and made it there in just an hour and a half. Then we hit a snag. We were kept on the train for what seemed like an eternity and what ended up verging on half an hour. They just kept the doors closed, without a single announcement about why we were being detained (not that it would have helped as it would have most surely been only in Italian). We finally were allowed off the train and overheard that somebody had jumped into the tracks and taken their life. We couldn’t confirm this, but that definitely shook us up a little bit.

After our anticipation grew while waiting to exit the train, we realized we had no idea where we were heading, but like in most Italian cities, we eventually happened upon some Roman ruins and found some tourist information. While walking aimlessly we saw (in my mind) the quintessential Italian countryside: the rolling hills, the slender evergreens, the blue skies and Mediterranean architecture. It really was quite astounding and picturesque. Eventually we made it to the historic center and purchased a guide book to help us know what we were seeing and guide us to the things we needed to see.

I was actually surprised by the number of things there were to see. I had only been expecting perhaps a monument to Romeo and Juliet and some quaint streets. Instead we were directed to the “Juliet House” (Hillary liked to point out that she did not exist and therefore there she did not have a house), a Roman arena second in size and importance to only the Coliseum, and some pretty incredible piazzas.

Juliet’s house apparently used to belong to a family that is said to have inspired the Capulets, at least as far as name derivation goes. This is hands down the main attraction of Verona. Tourists flocked to the house to either look up at the balcony and pretend to serenade sweet Juliet or to grope Juliet’s statue down in the courtyard. Yes, the popular thing to do is to grope Juliet’s statue. Her chest is shiny and smooth from all the extra loving and attention she has received over the years. On the walls leading into the courtyard is graffiti from thousands of star crossed lovers who have come to see one of the most famous couples in history.

I was more impressed with the Roman arena. It was still very intact, and apparently is still put to use quite often. They perform musicals, operas, and other events in the structure, and have for over one thousand years. Pretty impressive if you ask me.

Luckily the trains were back up and functioning when we decided to head back to Mestre. We were hoping to go back to the hostel and settle in for some Super Bowl watching. No dice. The TV that was in the common room didn’t work. Even if it did work, it probably would not have had any station showing the game. Disappointed, we decided to head into Venice to see if there was a better chance of catching the game in the city. We saw some Erasmus posters up advertising various parties and hoped they were perhaps hosting a viewing of the big game. Still, no luck. Instead we lost ourselves in the winding streets, happening upon the famous Rialto Bridge and San Marco’s square. Eventually we exited the city on our way back to Mestre without finding a place to watch the game.

Padova, Italy

The next day we headed to Padova, another old city located perhaps half an hour from Venice. Again, it had some Roman ruins of an old arena, but was obviously much more modern than Verona. We had to dodge trams and passed modern buildings as we made it to the historic center. The main attraction in Padova is Saint Anthony’s Basilica, this gigantic and beautiful cathedral with big blue domes imposing over the city.

Neither of us being particularly religious and knowing that Caitlyn would be arriving in Venice soon, we didn’t stay too long in Padova. But we did make one stop before departing the city. Wikitravel recommended Il Rei de Kebab as a great falafel joint. For some reason, we all have become obsessed with falafel since being in Europe resulting in seeking it out in every country we visit and holding falafel Fridays (in conjunction with flannel Fridays). Well Wikitravel, you win this round. That falafel sandwich was arguably the best I have had here in Europe. Kudos Il Rei de Kebab, we salute you and your gigantic pitas filled with delicious fried chickpeas, sauces and vegetable salads.

After our feast we picked up Caitlyn from the train station and went shopping for some dinner. Fresh Italian mozzarella, focaccia bread, cherry tomatoes and a tub of chocolate hazelnut gelato. True bliss.

Southern Spain 2

Third stop: CORDOBA

Well, you may think that by now I am done with Moorish architecture. I have seen the Giralda and Alcazaba in Seville. I just took in the Alhambra. I have even been to Morocco. What more could I want? Well, surprisingly, I was ready for the Mezquita in Cordoba.

The ride from Granada to Cordoba was beautiful. We passed rolling hills covered in almond trees blossoming with tiny white flowers and rows and rows of olive trees as far as the eye could see. Spain still does not cease to amaze me. The country is so diverse.

Well, we arrived in Cordoba, and like most cities in Spain, its roads went every which way. Somehow we find our hostel without a map. Eager to take in the sites, we head straight for the Mezquita. We find out it costs 8 euro or something around there. Reasonable for such a historic site. But then we discover that it is free on Sundays. Tomorrow is Sunday. I think we know when we are visiting the Mezquita.

Instead, we wander around a bit. We cross the bridge to some castle like hold. We locate Cordoba’s alcazar and see the gardens… under construction. I understand that travelling during the low season will have some drawbacks. In exchange for smaller crowds and less tourists I understand the weather will be worse and the hours will be shorter. That doesn’t mean that everything has to be under construction, too. Seriously, does everything go under construction in the winter every year, or is it just our luck that this winter everything happens to need restoration?

Despite the construction, the gardens and the fortress are pretty astounding. These Moors and their perfect geometry. They might have been short (even I didn’t fit in some of their doorways), but they made up for it with recessed lighting shaped like stars and gardens that put many others to shame.

Hungry, yet kitchenless, we raided a OpenCor grocery store and feast in one of the countless quaint plazas dotted throughout Cordoba. Yet again, we found ourselves wondering what to do with our time. We were putting off the Mezquita until tomorrow and had already seen the Alcazar. We tried to get into the royal horse barn but to no avail. Noticing that Cordoba pretty much had a church for every resident, we began wandering the streets, stopping at cathedrals we found along the way. Then we spotted some posters advertising a free concert at the Metropolis. Not knowing where the Metropolis was nor having a means of finding out where it was, we decided to walk along the streets until we found it. We had a few hours and Cordoba is only so big.

Well, that plan didn’t work out too well. We found Roman ruins and more churches, but were no closer to finding the Metropolis than an hour ago. We went back to the hostel and asked the receptionist. She took our map and drew an arrow at the very edge. She told us that it wasn’t on the map, but if we walked in the direction and took some lefts and some rights and asked around we would be able to find it in an industrial area of town. Rock music in an industrial area of town? Count me in.

Hillary and I started off in that direction, stopping by the old town’s wall for a bit to pass the time. Eventually we find ourselves in an industrial part of town, hoping to Dios that we find the Metropolis and that the 75 minute walk out of town was worth it. After passing discount furniture stores and warehouses, Hillary shouts out, “AH! We found it!”

Our receptionist was not lying. The Metropolis was definitely a long walk out of town. Well, we stand in line with maybe 10 Spanish people waiting to enter the free concert. A while after entering the place the first band starts to play. They were pretty good and it was great to finally be at a concert again, but exhaustion took hold and we knew we had to wake early to get to the Mezquita. After the first set we headed back to the hostel.

Again, the Moors were a great civilization. The old mosque was so great that when the Christians took over the city they could not bear to tear it down. Instead, they built a cathedral right inside the old mosque. That’s right, the Mezquita is this series of beautiful Moorish arches and architecture surrounding a cathedral that was plopped right in the center. The contrast is stark. The dark aspects of the mosque juxtaposed with a brightly lit church. Even the ornaments of each style are so different.

Well, we finish with the Mezquita and drop by the synagogue before leaving for Seville. What a religious day.

Last Stop: SEVILLA

We had already been in Sevilla before. This time it was more of a stopping point before flying to Venice. That didn’t mean we didn’t want to site see some more. And unlike last time we were in Sevilla, the weather was perfect. We revisited the Plaza de Espana, and this time could actually bask in the center instead of huddling underneath the arches of the building to avoid the rain. We walked along the river and just enjoyed the weather.

Back at the hostel we try to simulate a little bit of America with a dinner of cheese burgers and fries that left us wholly unsatisfied. The burgers didn’t brown, but instead turned pink, making us fear for our health as we bit in. The fries didn’t crisp. The cheese we bought said it was cheddar. It was actually a terrible version of American cheese. I hate American cheese. That does not count as cheese when you hail from Wisconsin. Oh well, at least the kilo of clementines that we split was delicious.

Cordoba and Sevilla Pics

Granada Pics

Southern Spain 1

Successfully finishing my first semester at the Universidad de Cantabria, I think I owe myself some type of reward. How about a trip to southern Spain? Great! And how about you tack on a week to Italy? Sounds like a plan! That is exactly what I did for my two weeks in between first semester finals and the beginning of second semester classes.

First stop: MALAGA

From what I can tell, Malaga could be great in the summer. When we were riding the city bus towards our hostel we passed some great big old structures that looked awesome and the beach looks nice, well, at least in the dark. We didn’t spend too much time in Malaga. It was just a stepping stone to the real goal (well, the first goal) of the trip, Granada. We flew into Malaga, took a bus several miles in the wrong direction, walked several miles back in the right direction, slept, and saw the bus station. Good times in Malaga.

Second stop: GRANADA

After a short bus ride we arrived in Granada (literally pomegranate in Spanish, I did not see a pomegranate in Granada). After dropping off our stuff in the hostel we head to the Alhambra, the main attraction of Granada (and possibly one of the top attractions of Spain). According to a quick perusal through the Wikipedia entry, the Alhambra is a palace and fortress constructed in the 14^th century by the Moors and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (the first of many on this trip).

While accurate, this description kind of falls flat in comparison to the actual building. You may remember from my stint in Seville that the Moors kind of had a knack for architecture and carving. Well, while I was impressed with the Alcazaba in Seville, the Alhambra blew me away. The intricate carvings weren’t even the start of it. The attention to detail was astounding. The details had details. The gardens were perfect. The view of the city was astounding. The view of the Sierra Nevada was even better. I could have spent hours exploring the building and grounds. To make things better, the weather was perfect. We had nothing but blue skies and warm weather.

Following hours of exploring this labyrinth of gardens and buildings, Hillary and I were ready for something new. Unfortunately, we researched very little for Granada. We knew the Alhambra was the attraction of the city, but that was it. So we slowly wandered the streets and took in the truly peaceful day.While accurate, this description kind of falls flat in comparison to the actual building. You may remember from my stint in Seville that the Moors kind of had a knack for architecture and carving. Well, while I was impressed with the Alcazaba in Seville, the Alhambra blew me away. The intricate carvings weren’t even the start of it. The attention to detail was astounding. The details had details. The gardens were perfect. The view of the city was astounding. The view of the Sierra Nevada was even better. I could have spent hours exploring the building and grounds. To make things better, the weather was perfect. We had nothing but blue skies and warm weather.

While eating dinner we met a really friendly guy from Cordoba, Argentina. He invited us to go out with him and some other people from the hostel for tapas. A group of Czechs, Argentines, Brazilians, French, Germans and, of course, Americans headed out to the bars for real tapas. It was a lot of fun and was really interesting to see English act as the common link between so many nationalities. I am truly lucky it is my first language!

Early the next day we made our way to the Sierra Nevada mountain range. We were really looking forward to the trineo ruso or literally Russian bobsled. Apparently it is like a really tame rollercoaster, but in the snow. Well, upon arrival to the snowy mountains we wandered over to the kid part of the ski village. It had ice skating, snow bikes and yes, trineo ruso, pretty much anything I could want from a ski village. We approached the trineo ruso ticket booth and asked for two rides. Then we hit our first snag. The women replied to us that she needs workers there and that we would have to wait. Hillary and I, not entirely understanding, awkwardly wait around for a few minutes before deciding it would take more time for workers to arrive. Instead of having an awesome fun time on the bobsled, we go explore what the ski village has to offer. In short, it has ski rentals, clothes rentals (interesting), and their corresponding ski and clothes shops. We were momentarily intrigued by the Bumerang (we assumed it was pronounced bum, not boom) which was essentially a shovel for your bum which you could use to sled down the mountain. Fun! Wait, no! We came here to ride some Russian bobsleds and we will not be swayed by a totally awesome mini sled. Keep focused.

We continued wandering. We took in the scenery of the snow capped mountains and stopped in a place to eat and play Dutch Blitz (there was a lot of Dutch Blitz playing on this trip, A LOT). Finally we decided that the workers must be at the trineo ruso. We walked back over, only to be confronted with even more disappointment. This time they told us that it was booked up. Well, great Sierra Nevada trineo ruso people for ruining the awesome time we were going to have.

Mad as hell, or at least slightly disheartened, we purchased some very expensive gondola rides to the top of the mountain and absorbed all the snowy glory that awaited us at the top. More Dutch Blitz inside the ski lodge ensued and we descended the mountain to return to Granada.