8/10 Granada: Alhambra by moonlight

The morning following the downer-drunken goodbyes of our last nights as our entire program together in Madrid was hectic; people sleeping all over the place, last minute packing, panicking, or travel reservations, and short cut cleaning of apartments. My travel mates, for what was supposed to last only a day, were all supposed to meet at the bus station for our 1 pm bus; and if my luggage were not so ridiculously heavy I would have made it! I made it to the bus station right at 1 but couldn’t really lug that thing around fast enough to find the boarding gate in time. Low and behold, all except Aileen missed it and so we caught the 2 pm bus to Granada together. The bus driver was insanely mean! He wouldn’t let Sona on our bus even though there was definitely a bunch of empty seats. Then, before taking off, he’d take a trip to the back of the bus and 1) actually enforced seatbelt wearing, 2) wouldn’t let Jordan take off his shoes, and 3) yelled at me for putting my feet on the seat. Of course I didn’t understand any of his angry ramblings so I just kept giggling, “no hablo espanol?! lo siento!” I must be getting used to these long journeys or sleeping in those seats because the six hours flew by so fast! I read up on Granada according to my new favorite friend Rick Steve and his book I got for free because john left it at the boys apartment. Halfway through, we pit stopped at a little town that it took a little while for me to recognize from the last time I’d seen it, in the pitch dark smack dab in the middle of the night on the way to algecerias. It was the first time I realized how sad I actually was about leaving Madrid and how life could never be that way again.  We hit Granada in the evening and waited for Sona, who caught the bus an hour after us, then headed up to see the Alhambra by moonlight (as rick recommended!) because its not crowded and that much more beautiful. We made it up the hill and a little too excited at the ticket office, spent a good 20 minutes trying to take a picture with the words “the Alhambra,” while the ticket office was closing. We definitely missed buying tickets and thus had to come back and wait in the almost 2 hour line the next morning and missing our bus, again, to Malaga. Instead, we went out for the most delicious pizza, spinach fettuccini gnocchi, and curry pasta ever.

the picture that made us miss the ticket office hours

8/11 Granada: Alhambra, Malaga @ 9

After Morocco, I definitely fell in love with Arab décor, specifically their attention to detail and themes, and the Alhambra has tons of it.  After waiting in the two hour line and then for our 2:30 appointment time to enter, we started off at the Generalife Garden which was supposed to be the closest thing to heaven on earth as described by the Quaran.  There was grid of tall bushes, each cell connected by an entry way and filled with flowers and plants.  Water runs everywhere: around you, below you, on the stair case hand rails, fountains, and aqueducts… because 1) being from the desert, Arabs really appreciate the sound and presence of water and 2) according to their prayer rituals, they are really really clean people. The Sultans summer palace rest amid the heavenly garden and it’s not too shabby. It of course has flowers and water running everywhere, but also deliciously smelling orange trees! The fountains were really pretty; if I were the sultan, the tranquility from the water sounds would convince me to stay there forever. I remember thinking, if his summer house is that nice, I wonder what his regular castle looks like. We made our way to the Alhambra and definitely loved being surrounded by so much patterned engraved white stucco walls or wooden ceilings or layers and layers of columns with fountains in almost every room.  Thanks to Rick, I knew exactly what I was looking at.  Like the fountain that the sultan’s father placed the heads of the 36 people he killed because they supported his son (that he did not support.) And that the words “Only Allah is victorious” (in Arabic of course) are engraved 9,000 times throughout the palace, along the walls and in twined within the patterns, and how to identify the text.  Everything from floors to high domed ceilings, in every room, was hand carved with intricate designs; it was insane.  Then we headed to the Alcazaba, fort, which offers pretty nice views of the entire valley. We grabbed a quick pa ella dinner & rushed to our bus to Malaga.

Generalife Garden

The palace

The alcazaba

Malaga was definitely not what I had expected. It was extremely modern with huge shopping malls and shopping plazas.  There were no cute Spanish styled balconies like in Madrid or Barcelona, no old antique architecture. If it weren’t for the feria, I think Malaga would have been a big mistake.  Our hotel in Malaga was freakin fabulous. Not only did we have free internet, our room was so cute with a red and white and black modern theme, 2 showers with a radio in both rooms, and a huge plasma tv, you know, so we could watch clueless in Spanish.  We had some neighbors in the hotel that asked us to hang out, but the streets were pretty dead.  The only good thing that came out of meeting them was one guy told us that we were very fortunate to have come to Malaga during one of the biggest events of the year and where and when the festivities would be taking place tomorrow!

8/12 Malaga: Feria + Alcazaba + Alcazar + Roman Theater

With no real plans for Malaga, we slept in the next day.  The guys next door advised us to head to the feria right after noon.  We definitely were not expecting what we got.  The dead area of the night before, less than a 5 minute walk of our hotel, was completely filled to capacity with women and children dressed as flamenco dancers and men in hats, vests, trousers and suspenders.  It was kind of a big deal. There were multiple bands and a bunch of bars, taken outside like at europride, and stalls selling Spanish dress up clothing.  One band played summer lovin’, another picked people from the crowds to play instruments as older fully flamenco’ed out women danced beside the younger “thought they were cool for this scene but had more fun being part of it” crowd.  The children were, of course, the most adorable thing in the whole wide world.  The people were so incredibly nice; one man just got his food and was walking back from the outdoor bar to his table and bumped into me along the way, so he laughed and offered me some of his food.

Then I went for a tiny breakfast that was sooo yummy: smoke salmon/goat cheese/apple sauce on a flat crepe bread. Then I thought I’d try to be cultured and get some history out of this city, since I was there, so I visited its main tourist sites: the fort, the castle, and the ancient roman theater; though they were all basically ruins.  The alcazaba was not what you’d expect from a fort… it was extremely peaceful, with a garden and fountains everywhere, actually a lot nicer than the Granada fort.  There were a lot of secret turns here and there to mysterious passage ways.  Then there were tiny exhibits of ancient pottery and a real old oven that they made those pots in. I sat and stared off into the city with a nice breeze before I headed to the top of the mountainous hill to the castle.  The roman theater was no Dionysus, but I guess its significance is that it demonstrates the existence of the Phoenician and the size advancements of Malaga as a roman city.  I made the long and treacherous trek to the castle which was only worth seeing because it was the highest point in the entire city. They recommend a pathway along the outer edges and towers.  Then I had a drink at the little café at the top and discovered how huge the night was going to be.  We hopped in the hotel pool on the roof for a bit before getting ready for the night fair. 

The night fair was amazing, absolutely amazing, the biggest fair I have ever seen in my life, bigger than I can imagine any big fair to be.  Beyond the entrance that reminds you of Disneyland during Christmas, it was like a 10 block by 10 block square, each lane completely lit up overhead with neon signs. If you go to the right, you’d see rows and rows of clubs and bars, on after the other with a variety of crowds. Some were very family oriented, some had live Spanish bands, some were dark and tried to attract younger people, some were pirate themed with really cheesy “how do you dance to this” kind of music.  Then you’d see rows of food, including the most amazing baked potatoes in the world, gofres y helado (waffles and ice cream,) I couldn’t resist roasted almonds, and surprisingly a lot of hamburgerias. To the left of the main entrance was the carnival party, with the craziest rides I have ever seen.  We laugh because we think Spanish play grounds and such are crazy cool because they aren’t so worried about safety and lawsuits as much as Americans are.  There were even water rides, like the circle rubber tire ones.  One cool ride was three flat columns, each with a bull heads at the end.  People try to remain seated on the columns as they spin and jerk and the floor below them shakes.  There was another ride that was a spinning unstable platform and people can just walk around or try to stay standing, some kids were play fighting on it.  We did fork up the money to ride the bumper cars, which was incredible dangerous! Every little hit almost sent me flying and, thanks to Aileen’s pleasant Asian woman driving, we got hit a LOT.  We got there around 1 am and the party went on until the morning. 

8/13 Nerja: Beach

We got up a little early the next morning for the tiny beach town of Nerja, which reminded me a little of Santorini, Greece, but not as serene.  Although I have to admit, it was pretty close to paradise.  We stopped in a super market and bought sandwich making foods, fruits, and my favorite melocoton y uva (peach and grape) juice :) for lunch. Then we spent a good billion hours at the beach, taking sports illustrated type pictures, the girls jumped off this huge rock that I was not about to die for. I think that’s where this ridiculous tan came from, definitely sun burned for a few days.  We had a yummy cheap dinner, so cheap we even ordered dessert.  We had a girl’s night back in the hotel. The group of five would dwindle down to three tomorrow. Definitely spent those 4 nights with 5 people crammed into two joined double beds; that was fun, not.

8/14 Sevilla: Cathedral, Alcazaba

The next morning, with no actual concrete plan, we woke up late and missed a descent hour bus to Cadiz so we went to Sevilla instead. I didn’t really want to go there, like at all, but I had 2 days to kill before I had to be on my plane to Paris. We arrived in Sevilla in the late afternoon, and I finally ate Pans (because berto kept asking me, “did you eat pans yet?”) which are the bocadillo (long skinny baguette sandwiches) fast food chain of Spain. I simply couldn’t resist the queso, pollo y championes bocadillo. Then we searched for the st cruz square to the huge cathedral and alcazar.  The cathedral was only open for mass so we didn’t really get to walk around inside much but it was certainly the biggest church I’ve seen by far. Actually, not really, because according to Rick, it’s the third largest, the largest being the St peter’s basilica in Rome which I saw two years ago. Then we went into the alcazar (castle) which I couldn’t decide if I liked better or worse than the Alhambra. I thought it was definitely not as extravagant but it was more peaceful because it didn’t have as many crazed annoying camera happy tourists (like me!) We didn’t have enough time to see the entire thing, but we didn’t know there was so much to see. As the guard shoo’ed us out from room to room, we were just in awe. There was definitely a waterfall out of one of the windows.  Then we walked, a lot, down the little narrow kissing alleys that (rick says) are 3 degrees cooler than the rest of the city because they were designed narrow to produce shade with the aroma of orange trees (which has nothing to do with the temperature, it just smelled nice.) we walked until we found Plaza de Espana which we only knew about because we saw a post card of it in one of the little shops and decided, “we want to see that!” It was like half a stadium with a huge fountain in the middle and beautiful bridges because there used to be a river below it. But rick informed us that it was lined with a little cove for each province in Spain with a tile portrait depicting an important historic event that took place in each. We walked along and sat and rested in our home cove, Madrid & Barcelona.  More girl talk and walks down memory lane made us sad sad sad. We tried to figure out which of the (only 6!) weekends was our favorite; I was stuck between morocco & the kapital/bull fight in madrid. After I bragged about my delicious meal at pans, we went back there for dinner. We sat outside and realized that Spaniards love to party because at midnight on a Tuesday night, there was definitely a party going on the side walk. (plus the huge feria the night before.) There was a concert set up and the people all got up and danced the pollo loco, it was insane. The crazy part is, although the people did not know each other, they partied and danced together as if they did, it reminded me of the Chiu family parties but with complete strangers! Of course we joined in the fun.  We caught an overnight bus to Madrid; and then there were two… :(

 

8/15 Madrid: Paloma fair

We arrived early early early to Madrid the next morning and headed straight to the airport. Sona had to find out her flight info because ryan air never sent her any confirmation info and I wanted to put my luggage in a locker so I could explore the rest of the day.  We agreed to meet at accent (school) but after two hours of waiting I didn’t know what else to do. So I hopped the bus that goes up and down the main avenue of Madrid, as my teacher recommended, because the tour buses typically follow that route to show you the evolution of Madrid: from the oldest part of town to the newest all the while passing the major landmarks.  It made me realize how the city was all connected. Since I usually take the underground I couldn’t conceptually put together where everything was, but now I could have definitely walked everywhere a lot more, and things were closer to my house (not anymore!) than I thought they were.  That killed very little time, so I headed to an internet café where everyone and their moms were looking at porn. Actually, when I first got onto the computer, porn windows were open left and right. Who knew. I walked around sol, plaza mayor, the usual… but it was oddly crowded and none of the legit stores were open, which was weird. Since I had time to kill, and nothing to do, I went out to the San Francisco metro stop like I always wanted to. It was a lot of work to get there, and it was definitely a ghetto. People were looking at me like, little japones girl, what do you think you are doing? I took the escalator up, took a peek and went right back down into the metro. Then I went around my apartment area, figuring I could shop around El Corte Ingles for a while, eat my lunch, but that was closed too (and el corte is NEVER closed!) So I was like what the heck is going on, and this man, fascinated by the fact that I am Japanese (I think these people have convinced me that I am indeed Japanese) asked me what I was looking for. I asked him why the entire city was closed and he said “there’s a festival today in La Latina!”  (again, Spaniards LOVE to party.) So I had a few hours before the big party so I went back to the hostel I stayed at the first night to use their internet (for free! Yay) and it was rather lovely, indeed.  I managed to guess walk my way to La Latina from there, which was based on instinct alone, and I found it very easily. I sat and watched at the crowd grew larger and large. You know, i met a few families as their children were excited for waffle cone snacks covered in whipped cream. I couldn’t communicate much besides that I was Chinese and leaving for France in the morning.  I walked around a little and found a narrow lane blocked off in front of a church and a lot of older women dressed in traditional Spanish clothes with veils. I tried to ask the man standing along the gate what was going on and he said it was blocked off because of the fair, that’s all. I knew he was lying and probably just wanted my spot, especially after I saw reporters and camera crews. I walked over to the reported in hopes of watching her story and attempting to understand the Spanish to figure out what was going to happen here.  To my surprise, she was also amused by my Japanese ness and wanted to interview me for her story. I told her I couldn’t speak much Spanish so she told me what to say, then said if I didn’t feel comfortable to just speak English. So yay I was on tele madrid that night saying “I don’t know what the Paloma is, this is the first time I’ve heard of this!” So the festival was a catholic celebration of the virgin of Madrid (paloma) and the elder women were dressed as virgins, in the religious sense. Then the official virgin of Madrid was marching along with her float as people screams long live the virgin, (I think) in Spanish. I topped off the evening with colored popcorn, it was very fun. it was easier and cheaper for me to sleep at the airport that night because since my flight was at 6 am, it wasn’t worth getting a hostel for the night and the metro would be closed. So I took the BEST shower of my life in the Madrid airport handicapped bathroom sink. I will never disclose how I managed to do it, but I was so scared every time there was announcements over the PA system that they would say “please do not shower in the public bathroom sinks” or that a wheel chaired person might just happen to need that particular bathroom. Haha. Then vodaphone gave me free minutes on my cell phone so I called everyone in the world before I slept for a few hours.

 

8/16 Paris: Boulangerie, Versailles: Chateau, London: Notting Hill

The next morning was so stressful! I was probably the first one at the airport but the last one in the checkin line because the whole time there weren’t specific location labels for each line until I was next in line! Then when it was my turn, the lady said I had to go to the end of the Paris line because I was in the Milan line. Then when I got to the front of the paris line, they said my luggage was 13 kg over the allotted weight so I had to pay 8 euros per kg, which came out to a hefty 104 euros! That was almost the same price as mailing the damn thing home, which I would have rather done so I wouldn’t have to lug it around. If only I knew. I made my way to the plane and completely knocked out. I didn’t even feel the landing; the people in my row had to wake me up so they could get off. Then I lugged the luggage up and down the Paris trains to paris Nord station to put my luggage in a locker so I could explore versaille. I realized my train was a little later than I thought so I decided I had time to stop by the notre dame for breakfast. The tiny alley way streets were more adorable than I remembered and I asked a local for a cute delicious typical boulangerie recommendation from a cute boutique lady. At the bakery, I did what mom would do, and well all out, ordering desserts and pastries left and right like there was no tomorrow; and it was so yummy! Then I took the long haul train ride to Versaille, met a nice family from Tarragona who taught me how to count to ten in catalan (so different from Spanish!) while we waited in a very very long line to buy the overpriced entry ticket. The chateau was kind of boring. The bedrooms were of course gorgeous but not very different from Palacio Real in Madrid of Napoleons quarters in the Paris Louvre. Then a huge portion was set aside for French history, which I know very very little about, with portraits of lots of people that I did not know. But im glad I learned about Spanish history, as opposed fro France, because memorizing what happened during each of the Fernando’s and Charles’s (CFFFCCFFC) couldn’t be as hard as all the Louis’s (LLLLLLLLL) and Marie’s. All the kings had the same freakin’ name.  after a while, my taking picture strategy was just avoiding getting people in them because people were everywhere! It was as if the Mona Lisa was in every room or euro pride crowds put on some real clothes and decided to see the palace. I was falling asleep walking from boredom until I hit the fabulous hall of mirrors.  Rows and rows of chandeliers on the ceiling rest above the mirrors lined the walls facing gorgeous windows and lines of sculptures and lamps. It was absolutely gorgeous; I just wanted to hang out there forever. That’s where the king would host royal balls, weddings and the signing of the treaty. Then I had a short lived walk in the garden as dark clouds rolled through the sky and light rain drizzled.  I passed out on the train back to the train station, totally missed my stop and almost missed the train to London; luckily almost! When I got to London, the underground was definitely expensive, costing ₤4 ($8) a one way ride. But my first interaction with nice London people was the man who let me pass through a free entrance because of my heavy luggage! Then, at the Notting Hill gate station, where my sister’s friend lives, a nice young girl helped me lug my luggage up the stairs and gave me directions. I walked in to his house saying, ‘God the people are SO NICE!’ We went out for a yummy italian dinner in the cute neighborhood and ken ordered everything in the world while I was trying to be cheap haha. I was so glad to see a real full sized bed all to myself; a total upgrade from sleeps the night before at the airport, on an overnight bus, and with 5 people crammed in the two twin beds.

 

8/17 London: Buckingham, St James Park, Ritz, Parliament, Westminister Abbey, County Hall Star Wars Exhibition, London Eye, Trafalgar Square India Festival, Chinatown

I must be getting old because I thought I had a perfect sleep in but woke up pretty early at 10 am! I headed out to Buckingham Palace and just missed the changing of the guards ceremony but I heard it wasn’t that great anyway. I saw the cool hat’d guards marching around and cleaning up after the ceremony. I debated whether to go in or not but voted no because im honestly all palace’d out. I walked around St James park, stopped in the Ritz, took the typical tourist picture with a fuzzy hat guard and in a telephone booth in front of big ben, and saw the west minister abbey.  I walked toward the London Eye & that’s where I saw it, it was love at first sight: The star wars exhibit in the County Hall building. I walked in, you know, just to see what there was to see inside.  A little bit of flirting with the man at the counter landed me a good enough discount + a touch on the shoulder by Darth Vader convinced me I just had to go in. That was the best decision ever. They had original costumes from the movie (including my future wedding dress that queen amidala wore at the end of episode 1), the real life pod racer and x wing fighter, and sketches of what characters and costumes as they were brainstorming what they wanted them to look like.  Jedi’s and storm troopers and darth vader were definitely walking around and I stuck out like a sore thumb being the 1) biggest kid, 2) most excited, 3) asian 4) girl in a plaid pink dress and 5) alone there. But I proposed to darth vader and got a really good picture of us kissing haha. I lined up to have a light saber fight a jedi in front of a green screen and definitely paid ₤5 for the crappy dvd where you can hear him instructing me what to do “up, down, block, duck, jump” hahaha. Then the last thing in the exhibit was the “jedi school” where they picked me (because the force is oh so strong within me) and 5 other kids to teach how to use a light saber, then darth sidious comes out and says we’ll eventually join the dark side and gets darth vader to come out and we kids have to fight him hahaah. I met some nice parents in that museum that helped me take pictures, you know, when I was off training and fighting evil. Then I realized we were sitting where the old parliament used to assemble and thus Winston Churchill had sat in Darth Sidious’s chair! So I asked the jedi’s to help me take a picture in the prime minister chair haha. Oh, I’m so cultured. The exhibit came to an end, but definitely spent like 4 hours there, so I headed to the London eye which is basically a extremely large and extremely overpriced ferris wheel where you can see almost the entire city.  I tried to make it to the National Portrait Gallery in Trafalgar square but it closed, but I did find yet another party in Europe: the Indian festival.  That’s where I bet I lost my cell phone. I didn’t take it out all day because my Spanish sim card wasn’t working in London so I’m pretty sure it was pick pocketed. Then I headed back to meet my sister’s friend Ken for dinner in Chinatown and drinks in picadilly circus. On the underground home, we overheard the most hilarious conversation between a middle aged man and woman.  Incredibly drunk, it seemed like they were going home together after a night on the town and we hear the man saying “I have a wife, I love my wife look at my ring” and shes like “oh I have a husband too but the things is were getting divorced, are you getting divorced?” and hes like “no I love my wife, look at my ring, I don’t even know your name!” then they see us giggling across from them and start talking to us. It was hilarious.

 

8/18 London: London Tower Bridge, London Tower, British Museum, National Portrait Gallery, Cheers, Soho, Chicago

The next morning, im stupid and try to upload all my pictures straight from the memory card to my flash drive, (instead of putting it on the computer first, then on the flash drive) and end up deleting most of my pictures from the past few days, including me and darth vader kissing and the hall of mirrors in Versailles. So of course, I had to retrace my steps and recover whatever I tourist pictures I could. Luckily I salvaged the London Eye pictures because it was so expensive to go on and all I had were the pictures to show for it. The people at the Star Wars exhibit remembered me and allowed me to go in again to retake my pictures, but all I really needed was a picture with darth vader again. I’m sad I lost my jedi school pictures though, they were pretty awesome. At least I have my dorky dvd! After re-doing almost everything, I went to the Tower Bridge which was so beautiful. I just sat by the water and absorbed it in. The plaza I was sitting at had painted guitar statues, each dedicated to, designed by, and signed by different artists and musicians (kind of like the hearts of san Francisco.)  I walked across the bridge to the London tower which was a medieval castle that I didn’t want to pay to go into but I did enjoy the view of the yard where people were playing medieval games shooting bows and arrows. People were dressed like they were in the time period, it was pretty neat. It started to rain so I headed to some indoor activities: the British Museum and the National Portrait Gallery.  I saw the Rosetta stone which was a lot bigger than I thought it would be, but the magna carta and all old documents had been moved to the british library, so that kind of sucked. I really liked the few andy warhol’s at the national portrait gallery though; that was pretty cool cause that guy’s kind of crazy. Everything began to close so I had just enough time to visit the reproduction of the Cheers bar. I LOVE CHEERS. I walked in and out of a few shops in Soho before we met up for drinks and Chicago. We had front row balcony seats which would have been awesome had there not been a bar in the way. The show was not as extravagant as I expected from the movie but the singing and dancing was fabulous. It was weird seeing the orchestra actually on the stage.  The puppet part (they both reached for the gun) and the court scene was my favorite even though I didn’t even really like those parts in the movie. I headed back early to pack and sleep for my early flight out the next morning. So goes my last night in Europe!

8/19 Home

The alarm definitely died on me in the middle of the night but luckily I naturally woke up early and managed to stay up before it was time to leave. I got to take one of those cute little taxi’s, where they drive on the other side of the road, to Paddington station and train it to Heathrow. Heathrow terminal 3 was nothing as beautiful as the movie Love Actually! I was rather disappointed actually! Again my luggage was still too heavy but the nice man at the check in counter, at first was like “its okay, I’ll just charge you 25” then I told him the story about how the stupid luggage was such a pain in the ass for me the entire trip and Vueling charged me over 100 euros because it was so heavy so I tried to split the weight up into two but that didn’t work out so evenly. He was extremely nice and said “its okay, I won’t make you pay then! And I got you the last window seat!” seriously, the people in london, SO NICE. The plane ride back showed shrek the third and lots of episodes of CHEERS. I also started to really like the show “how I met your mother” with Neil Patrick Harris, he’s funny. I got home and satisfied my Pho craving ASAP.

studying abroad in spain = best summer ever = best decision i 've ever made
for the first time, in a long time, i've become the girl who loves life, maybe even too much. its been a long time since i've thought that could be said about me. but i think the worst is definitely over.

here su & i sit at an internet cafe in granada. all but aileen missed the 1 oclock bus to granada from madrid, but caught the 2 and sona on the 3. i must be getting used to 6 hour bus rides because it seemed incredibly short and i slept through the entire thing. either that or because i did not sleep at all in the past 2 days. when our bus took a 20 minute pit stop, i walk into the restaurant and freakin "omg ive been here!" because thats where our bus stopped at on the way to algeceiras, on the way to morocco, in the middle of the night. i run to the bench like this is where we saw really big ants carrying really big sun flower seeds. full circle indeed. i must have been all over spain to recognize a random bus stop. anyway. we got here and went to check out the alhambra at night but missed the ticket window by 10 minutes because we were outside taking pictures with a sign for freakin ever. it was funny. then we ate incredible pizza and pasta, slept and were back at the alhambra at the top of this morning. the line took an hour or two and our reservation to go back is at 2. i was planning to leave for valencia on an overnight bus, then san sebastian and biarritz and bordeaux on another overnight bus, then mt st. michel on a train but the fact that 1) i dont know what im doing and 2) kind of terrified of travelling by myself and 3) my lugguage weights more than me so this way i can just leave it at a hotel and 4) wouldnt get to shower for like ever if i followed my plan, i decided to stay with the group and post in malaga and take day trips around south of spain, return to madrid for a minute and fly out to check out versaille. so, right now the rest of the group is at the bus station picking up our bus tickets to malaga, where we will be posted for the next few days, and im trying to book a flight out from madrid to paris, catching the "chunnel" train from paris to london and partying with my sisters gay best friend in london! woo hoo! im a little excited not going to lie. and i foudn some of the moroccan souvenirs here and might just repurchase my sisters gift because it was, oh so perfect. too bad its not from morocco anymore. :( i love you eva, im not scared anymore (because im not staying alone) and im finding my way!!

call me if you miss me and are worried!
I MISS MADRID!!! the last night was the saddest night ever.

FOR MORE PICTURES OF OUR LAST NIGHTS IN SPAIN

heres some pictures of the alhambra. for now! our hotel is awesome with free internet and its gorgeous!


summer palace


generalife garden


palacio nizares




alcazaba fortress

we went to the alhambra and fell in love with the delicious smelling garden where the sultan would enjoy his summers. the garden was the closest thing to heaven, as described in the quaran, on earth where water flows everywhere. (because the arabs came from the desert and have a great appreciation for water & the sound of water.) so, according to my new friend rick steves, if we believe and do good deeds, allah will now bless us with silk and pearls. yay! jordan tried to get oranges from the trees but they were much too high. then we went into the palace where every inch of walls and columns are engraved and carve. the words "only allah is victorious" is carved 9,000 times throughout the entire palace. thats devotion. i think thats what i love about arabic style that i saw here and in morocco, they pay so much attention to every single tiny detail of a room, like even the ceilings are fully hand carved with amazing elaborate patterns. i tried to capture it as much as i could.

there is also a room where the kings father cut of 36 heads and stacked them in a fountain because he didnt want his son to be king, he wanted his new wife's son to be king. so he killed a bunch of his son's supporters and stacked their heads up in this fountain. yum.

and again, for some reason, we are told that this is where christopher columbus got permission from queen isabel to explore the new worlds. every castle we go to likes to tell us it happened in their city... i dont know what to believe anymore.

then we saw the alcazaba (fortress) where granada was the last city to fall to the catholics in 1492. they raised the castillan & aragon flags high as he cried and his mom said "cry like a woman because you couldnt defend like a man."

updates are bolded

Today i took my Spanish final and i feel very confident about it, but sure enough, i usually do worse on the tests i feel good about! i forgot to mention the oral part of the exam where we had to speak with him one on one. everyone had about 10 minutes but for my turn, he cut me off after 2 minutes and said he had had enough! i had to beg him to let me keep going.  ben says i should have been like "por que?? yo tengo ocho minutos hablar con tu,profesor? ?Tu quierres (what ever punch in the face) is." however i landed a 6.5/10 on the oral, and an overall B- on the final. except the midterm, that was easy cheesy lemon squeezy. So i guess its supposed to really be over, but it has yet to hit me. Tonights our last big night together, and we're going all out. I have skimped out on these entries so now that i have my computer on hand and some time, i'm going to elaborate on some random weekdays here...

Our culture class discusses the history of Spain, from ancient cave drawings to until this past 2004 election and terrorist attack. i learned a lot about the religious wars and the ruling dynasties in the classroom. But every week we also visit a museum: the archaeological museum, the prado, and the reina sofia where we learn about a few of the most famous artists and the most famous works.  At the Prado, we looked at the work of Greco, Murillo, Ribera, Velázquez, and Goya. I fell in love with The Meninas & Saturno.




reminds me of katlyn.. hahaha i miss you so!

At the Reina Sofia, so far (because we're going back tomorrow), picasso's guernica sent chills down my spine because i could really feel the pain and chaos. oh and its gi-normous! I walked around a bit afterwards and caught a glimpse of some temporary exhibits that were really different; one guy paints dots and i swore i saw a happy face. oh contemporary art, how you make no sense. There was a photography exhibit of the spanish civil war in the 30's and it was cool to see the places i have been to. One was the Sevilla metro stop filled to the max with refugees with all their desperation. The crazy photographer took pictures of people panicking and running around in the streets, but why wasn't he running?! Yea we go back tomorrow, so hopefully i get a chance to see more.



the program included a few conferences to satisfy our curiousity about spanish culture: the zarzuela, the gastronomy, the bull fight, the cinema. We also watched a cute little movie called La Comunidad about a crazy apartment building where one guy wins the lottery but he's too scared to leave his house because his crazy neighbors are out to get him so he dies in his apartment and this lady finds it, and she goes through the same experience having trouble finding her way out. Darth vader, of course, saves the day.

The house is at peace and its pretty awesome. However, our landlord does officially hate us.

• Day one: the blinds break
• Mid July: she leaves us a note saying she was coming the next day to take pictures of the apartment and she'd like us to clean our rooms. But of course, that was the night of the Zarzuela (july 12) so we all get home late and leave early the next morning for Segovia but do the best we can to tidy up. she comes and moves all of our stuff and looks in our closets, finds our wine bottle collection, moves it to the kitchen with a note that we must throw it out. We were all a little upset about her invasion of privacy but we don't really know the laws about it so we dont do anything about it. She enters our apartment all the time.
• The maid acts as a spy and told her that we have been using the empty rooms in our apartment. (Not to mention the maid got white stains on my black pants and a red paint drip on sona's juicy sweater.)
• We have an accident: well Sona breaks a bed in a very hilarious way. but its truly was a faulty bed because the wooden support on the side split right down the middle and the part that holds up the mattress broke in half. Cheap ikea furniture!
• We overhear she and the maid talking about us.
  
• Then she says shes coming to take pictures again the next day so we all clean and she doesn't show up, then comes the day after and complains again that we did not clean.
• When she built the new furniture, she moved the kitchen table to the side to
  
• She comes to the apartment again and builds a massive entertainment center in the living room, blocking one of the few outlets that we do have. She builds new furniture, which aren't for us, and puts it in the empty room so we can't go in there.
  
• The worst thing that happened was the weekend we went to Barcelona. No one was here and she came in here to change the lights or something so she turns off the fuse box, and "forgets" to turn it back on. everything in the fridge rots for a few days and the house smells disgusting. (we did get reimbursed for our food.)
• yesterday (8/7/07), i realized all the gifts i bought for people from morocco, including the most perfect gift i found for my sister who is strangely one of the hardest people i've ever had to shop for, were missing. it wasnt until my room mate mentioned something about rummaging through the trash that i realized the maid must have mistaken the plastic bag as trash and threw it away. all of it: gone. and my room mates souvenirs from amsterdam, now we're all freaking out because we wouldnt really realize whether something were missing or not.
  

I tried to say hi to her the other day, because i have no drama with her, but it was very very awkward. she hates us. Not to mention the president of the building has knocked on our door to tell us the next loud night will grant us a call to the police. There is also an angry man who loves to shout at us from his window late at night. But there are nights where we are just studying or sleeping and the neighbors will still think we are loud; i tried to explain it as a cultural lifestyle thing because we dont wake up to each others alarms and dont hear each other late at night and can sleep through each others living noises.

after rummaging through the trash my room mate mentioned that there might be more trash bins in the garage. so i head down to the garage and enter through the door to find that you need a key to get back in. there are no trash bins in the garage. i climbed up the ramp where the cars go in hopes of setting of some sort of sensor but no luck. i don't know how to scream for help in spanish, so i start shouting "hola! hola! no puedo salida! me ayudas abrir la puerta de garaje!" one old lady responded but of course i dont know what shes saying. another man closes his window. when a couple comes out to put stuff in their car, they let me out and i run into steven, who lives around the corner, and he goes "yea i heard you screaming hola! but i thought you were screaming out your window to someone." the building maintanence guy comes over and tells me that he thought it was weird that we threw out a lot of heavy trash yesterday... SAD.

Well little did we know that the entire city closes for vacation in august! There is a famous bakery in Sol, Mallorquina, that i never got to try and i wish i knew it would be closed for august! There are a few regular places that you can surely find people in our program: Dubliners & El Tigre. Dubliner's is an irish pub that has an extremely cheap happy hour and puts way too much alcohol in all of their drinks, yes dubliners is the devil. El Tigre is a little bar that is always completely packed. but if u purchase a drink, even the smallest beer for 1.50, they give you a free plate of tapas with the most delicious patatas bravas i've ever eaten! there is also a 2euro bocadillo de calamares place in plaza mayor that we are all in love with. i love calamares!! For sure, for sure, we'll find someone we know at those places. I also watched pirates of the carribean 3 in spanish! and man i did not think i memorized so many quotes from it! but they sound so much funnier in spanish!





So, the weekends exhaust us enough that we pretty much relax and hang out during the week, i couldnt tell you how i spend the days, i have no idea. but i do know i've been eating rather deliciously lately! but the other night i had chinese food, in spain, and it gave me the worst tummy ache of all time. me duele el estomago! no bueno! we went to an egyptian temple too, debod temple. but im still determined to go to SAN FRANCISCO, its a metro stop. haha.
 

Where's michelle?





OH! i also watched a live flamenco ballet show: Carmen. At first i was like, "this is it?" because it was an empty stage with just the dancers in not that exciting dresses who werent even singing or pretending to sing. i thought it looked stupid and amateurish but it got so much better. they were acting out more of the scenes and the vibrant spinning dresses and choreography made it that much better. I think its interesting how the dance can communicate so much. i mean the themes have to be so universal to be so easily understood by everyone: fighting, love, death, jealousy, infidelity.. it was so beautiful.



Other than that, i've been shopping beyond all reason because i budgeted so well in the beginning of the trip that i decided i should start spendingggg! yay! oh and jennay is wonderful for getting us an apartment in LA! im so excited for my future roomies YAY! if you scroll down, i posted pictures from barcelona!