Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Okay, so I’m a bit late, but this way I guess I can be sure that everyone has already got their fair share of turkey, mashed potatoes and pie by now. For my Thanksgiving, I went to a potluck dinner hosted by two other auxiliares who live in Cádiz. It was truly one of the most interesting Thanksgiving dinners I have had, as we packed nearly 20 people into a single apartment; 7-8 Americans and the rest a random collection of various European nationalities: Spanish, French, Czech, Swedish, Icelandic… I could very well be missing a couple. It was really great having so many first-time Thanksgiving-ers around to celebrate – I feel like this holiday is one of the few uniquely American celebrations that is still relatively unknown by people from other countries. We (the Americans) got to introduce some of the foods and explain for why it’s patriotic for Americans to stuff their faces every fourth Thursday in November. For those who are curious, yes we were able to find a turkey, stuffing and most traditional Thanksgiving cuisine, but came up a little bit short as we were missing cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie.
But before I get any further in my entry, I have a confession to make:
Up until now, Thanksgiving has never been a favorite of mine. It has always just seemed like another day where we fulfill the “country-of-gluttons” stereotype by consuming way too much of everything. Oddly enough, despite (or perhaps because of?) the untraditional nature of my Thanksgiving this year, I shed my Scrooge-iness and really enjoyed the beauty of this holiday. It was wonderful to be in a room full of so many people from so many places and different walks of life and still be able to share such a warm, pleasant evening with them. Not surprisingly, not being at home for the holiday made me feel like I was missing out by not being in Tualatin, but it also made me realize that the more grown up everyone becomes, the more often life will get in the way and prevent us from all being in the same place at the same time, making the rare occasions when we are together all the more special.
Also, another “growing-up” realization that has recently dawned on me is the genuine appreciation for the things that I have in my life that are easy to overlook. For example, I really do feel blessed to have a job that I enjoy, that I earn me enough money to pay for rent, food, and even have a little left over to have fun with, that I live with two wonderful Spanish friends who help me improve/laugh at my Spanish, that I have a group of American friends who help keep me sane when I need it most, and last but not least, a wonderful family and group of friends from home who I love and miss!!!
Now that I’ve successfully turned this into the sappiest posting ever, I think I’ll sign off! Besos a todos!
30 November 2008
25 November 2008
Barcelona... again
Like I said, I went to Barcelona last weekend. It was the first big trip I’ve went on (“big” being defined as “out of Andalucía”), and it definitely set the bar pretty high. As a city, Barcelona is completely different than Cadiz. For one thing, it’s enormous, located in Catalonia (think NE Spain), so both Spanish and Catalán is spoken, not to mention the its obvious cosmopolitan vibe. While I haven’t exactly traveled around Europe enough to feel qualified to make sweeping generalizations about it, I feel like it’s safe to say I got my first (small) taste of a typical big city in Europe. However, despite the appeal of being somewhere completely new and different, the best part about going to Barcelona is that I got to meet up with Lisa, my good friend from UPS! She flew in from Munich where she is currently living and I few in from Seville, so we met up in the airport and took the train to our extremely small and cute bed and breakfast-type place. After eating lunch and designing our itinerary of activities, we went out to explore the city.
Since we only had a few days in the city, we tried to pack in as much activity as possible without making sight seeing become a stressful task rather than an enjoyable experience. If I were to try and sum up the weekend’s events, I would say it was dedicated to appreciation of aesthetics… okay that kind of sounds like we just checked out Spanish guys all weekend. Not true. I mean aesthetics like the crazy architecture everywhere around the city, but especially places like La Familia Sagrada, La Pedrera, El Batlló… okay so maybe we did have a love affair… but don’t worry, it was with the buildings that renowned architect Antoni Gaudí designed and constructed. It’s incredible how perfectly planned everything is down to the smallest detail both in terms of architectural technique as well as building’s aesthetic design. With all of his work, Gaudí incorporates elements of nature – a classic example being the lack traditional straight walls with rigid 90 degree edges. Instead, any potential straight line or sharp angle morphs into a flowing, soft, rounded shape, whether it be a doorframe, stairwell, hallway, etc. This, along with his strategic use of windows and natural light in combination with all kinds of blues and purples make being inside his buildings like being under the sea or really just anywhere that is not inside a building in the middle of an extremely urban center. However, the part I liked best was being on the roofs of these buildings because that is where he went crazy with colorful tile mosaics and turned boring, ugly chimney tops into mysterious, abstract figures and statues. This, plus the fact that you can see all the surrounding Barcelona area makes it easy to spend a long time up on the patio rooftops soaking everything in. You can see examples of how he does this in the pictures that I already posted… I’m sure it would be easier for you just to look at them and see rather than to have me keep trying to explain things.
But where was I? Oh yes, the appreciation of aesthetics. In addition to drooling over Gaudí’s genius, we enjoyed walking along the Rambla del Mar (the sidewalk along the water), winding around the paths of Parc Guell, gawking at art in the Museu Picasso, exploring the Barri Gotic (the Gothic neighborhood), and wandering up and down another main largely pedestrian thoroughfare known just as “La Rambla”. Here we saw many interesting things: an outdoor market, people in costumes acting like statues (I got yelled at by the green goblin-esque man I tried to take a picture of… I was terrified of all costumed/facepainted individuals from that point on), stands that sold magazines and candy, some that sold houseplants and flowers, and others that sold animals (the pet variety, not for consumption) like fish, birds and hamsters. Needless to say, there was a lot to take in and we certainly didn’t do it all in one weekend, but I’m not opposed to a return visit…
Since we only had a few days in the city, we tried to pack in as much activity as possible without making sight seeing become a stressful task rather than an enjoyable experience. If I were to try and sum up the weekend’s events, I would say it was dedicated to appreciation of aesthetics… okay that kind of sounds like we just checked out Spanish guys all weekend. Not true. I mean aesthetics like the crazy architecture everywhere around the city, but especially places like La Familia Sagrada, La Pedrera, El Batlló… okay so maybe we did have a love affair… but don’t worry, it was with the buildings that renowned architect Antoni Gaudí designed and constructed. It’s incredible how perfectly planned everything is down to the smallest detail both in terms of architectural technique as well as building’s aesthetic design. With all of his work, Gaudí incorporates elements of nature – a classic example being the lack traditional straight walls with rigid 90 degree edges. Instead, any potential straight line or sharp angle morphs into a flowing, soft, rounded shape, whether it be a doorframe, stairwell, hallway, etc. This, along with his strategic use of windows and natural light in combination with all kinds of blues and purples make being inside his buildings like being under the sea or really just anywhere that is not inside a building in the middle of an extremely urban center. However, the part I liked best was being on the roofs of these buildings because that is where he went crazy with colorful tile mosaics and turned boring, ugly chimney tops into mysterious, abstract figures and statues. This, plus the fact that you can see all the surrounding Barcelona area makes it easy to spend a long time up on the patio rooftops soaking everything in. You can see examples of how he does this in the pictures that I already posted… I’m sure it would be easier for you just to look at them and see rather than to have me keep trying to explain things.
But where was I? Oh yes, the appreciation of aesthetics. In addition to drooling over Gaudí’s genius, we enjoyed walking along the Rambla del Mar (the sidewalk along the water), winding around the paths of Parc Guell, gawking at art in the Museu Picasso, exploring the Barri Gotic (the Gothic neighborhood), and wandering up and down another main largely pedestrian thoroughfare known just as “La Rambla”. Here we saw many interesting things: an outdoor market, people in costumes acting like statues (I got yelled at by the green goblin-esque man I tried to take a picture of… I was terrified of all costumed/facepainted individuals from that point on), stands that sold magazines and candy, some that sold houseplants and flowers, and others that sold animals (the pet variety, not for consumption) like fish, birds and hamsters. Needless to say, there was a lot to take in and we certainly didn’t do it all in one weekend, but I’m not opposed to a return visit…
24 November 2008
Barcelona
Just thought I'd post some pics from my weekend in Barcelona -- I'll write some about it soon, but for now I'm still playing catch up from being gone all weekend, so in-depth storytelling will have to wait. A really brief summary of the weekend: it was beyond wonderful getting to see my good friend Lisa (10 months is way too long), and even more amazing that we got to take ourselves on a whirlwind tour of one Spain's most well-known cities. We got to see lots of cool architecture, eat some good food and walk all over the city soaking in all the sights and sounds around us ... in short, it was great and I can't believe I'm already back home in Cádiz! Enjoy the photos!
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| New Album 11/24/08 4:17 PM |
16 November 2008
Escape from Cadiz!
A mixture of writer’s block and laziness have kept me from writing anything new for a while, but I feel obligated to post something, since it’s been a while…
Yesterday was a great adventure day – I temporarily left behind the concrete, sand and salt water of Cádiz and escaped to a much greener and mountainous region of Cádiz province for a day of hiking. To give the briefest of summaries, the day started at 8:30 when I got in a stranger’s car, drove to the southern tip of Spain, saw Africa from across the Strait of Gibraltar, and then hiked about through some small mountains/extremely large hills for 10 miles, out of which at least 2 had absolutely no defined trail. It sounds sketchy, but I promise it wasn’t, just lots of fun to be out in nature and seeing more of the surrounding area.
I got to go on this adventure pretty much out of luck – one of the teachers at my friend Lauren’s school invited her to go hiking this weekend and I was asked if I wanted to go too, so of course I said yes and tagged along! We got a ride with the teacher and her friend, and after much a few minor delays, eventually met up with 6-7 other Spaniards who were all going on the hiking trip with us. Lauren, Cat (another auxiliar friend who was also on the trip with us), and I had no idea where we were going until we were already in the car on our way. To our surprise/delight, we discovered our destination was just outside of Tarifa (southernmost city Europe)… great!!!
After driving for an hour or two, we got to the starting point of the hike… no official signs or anything, just a dirt road climbing up to the mountains. A few people in the group knew a fair amount about some of the plants and things in the area, so it was interesting to learn about that. The area where we were (still don’t know its exact name… haha) is part of a microclimate, which is so the flora there is different than in other parts of Andalucía. Some of the plants I saw were cork trees, frutas de bosque, and these weird wooden spheres that could be potentially be mistaken for enlarged acorns. It turns out they weren’t actually any type of food, but rather temporary worm houses. Oh, and a quick did you know fact about cork: that since it is essentially the tree’s bark that is stripped off, any given tree can only be harvested every 9 years or so... since a lot of wine is produced here, I’m assuming the demand for cork is also quite high. Other noteworthy things about the hike include the presence of pine trees (okay, not that exciting except for the fact that I hadn’t seen one in a while and I miss them), crossing paths with random cows and sheep, and almost being blown away from intense, ever present wind that the area near the Strait is known for. Anyway, further details about the hike can be much better described by pictures, so I’ll post the ones from my camera now and add some more from Cat and Lauren’s cameras when I get them!
Yesterday was a great adventure day – I temporarily left behind the concrete, sand and salt water of Cádiz and escaped to a much greener and mountainous region of Cádiz province for a day of hiking. To give the briefest of summaries, the day started at 8:30 when I got in a stranger’s car, drove to the southern tip of Spain, saw Africa from across the Strait of Gibraltar, and then hiked about through some small mountains/extremely large hills for 10 miles, out of which at least 2 had absolutely no defined trail. It sounds sketchy, but I promise it wasn’t, just lots of fun to be out in nature and seeing more of the surrounding area.
I got to go on this adventure pretty much out of luck – one of the teachers at my friend Lauren’s school invited her to go hiking this weekend and I was asked if I wanted to go too, so of course I said yes and tagged along! We got a ride with the teacher and her friend, and after much a few minor delays, eventually met up with 6-7 other Spaniards who were all going on the hiking trip with us. Lauren, Cat (another auxiliar friend who was also on the trip with us), and I had no idea where we were going until we were already in the car on our way. To our surprise/delight, we discovered our destination was just outside of Tarifa (southernmost city Europe)… great!!!
After driving for an hour or two, we got to the starting point of the hike… no official signs or anything, just a dirt road climbing up to the mountains. A few people in the group knew a fair amount about some of the plants and things in the area, so it was interesting to learn about that. The area where we were (still don’t know its exact name… haha) is part of a microclimate, which is so the flora there is different than in other parts of Andalucía. Some of the plants I saw were cork trees, frutas de bosque, and these weird wooden spheres that could be potentially be mistaken for enlarged acorns. It turns out they weren’t actually any type of food, but rather temporary worm houses. Oh, and a quick did you know fact about cork: that since it is essentially the tree’s bark that is stripped off, any given tree can only be harvested every 9 years or so... since a lot of wine is produced here, I’m assuming the demand for cork is also quite high. Other noteworthy things about the hike include the presence of pine trees (okay, not that exciting except for the fact that I hadn’t seen one in a while and I miss them), crossing paths with random cows and sheep, and almost being blown away from intense, ever present wind that the area near the Strait is known for. Anyway, further details about the hike can be much better described by pictures, so I’ll post the ones from my camera now and add some more from Cat and Lauren’s cameras when I get them!
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| Day Trips |
02 November 2008
Córdoba
A little debriefing on this weekend’s trip to Cordoba is in order. Overall, the trip was pretty fun, and getting to see the city’s Mezquita was a definite highlight. I do have to register some complaints, not about the city itself, but with the following unfortunate events:
1. Uncooperative weather. It was rainy and stormy for the majority of the time I was there, frequently making exploratory city wandering more of a head-down power walk to the next destination... at least I did remember to pack my rain jacket!
2. Holidays. Again, Spain and its holidays. November 1 is Todos Santos (okay, legit holiday), but the day’s special bus schedule foiled our plans to go see the Medina Azahara, a cool palace built a little ways outside of the city. A disappointment to not get to see it, but maybe some other time it’ll happen.
3. Camera Battery. Beloved camera failed to inform me of its nearly exhausted battery until I had already reached my destination. Note to self: always bring charger, JUST IN CASE.
Despite these complications, I still had a good time getting to see a new part of Spain. I arrived Thursday night, so the first noteworthy events didn’t happen until the next day, Halloween. I got to visit another auxiliar’s school and attend the Halloween party. It was interesting to get to see another primary school and observe how it was similar/different than my school. The party itself was essentially utter chaos, but still decently entertaining. I got to express my artistic side by painting vampires on the faces 7 year old children, so that was pretty great.
Next, we headed off to the La Mezquita, the primary tourist attraction in Córdoba. For those who are unfamiliar with it, it is an incredible cathedral/mosque (historically, it has been used as both so I don't know which I'm supposed to call it). As you can see from the photos, the dual heritage is clearly displayed through its architectural design. The contrast between the distinct Arabic archways/curvy imagery and the traditional Christian crosses and artwork were interesting to see within the same religious space. One constant element though was the intense detail that went into all of the painting/carving/building. That, along with the cavernous size (we spent at least a couple hours in there, I could’ve spent even more I think…) made it an amazing place to visit.
After that we went to the nearby Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos, a Castillo that used to be a palace for Fernando and Isabel (i.e. the Reyes Cristianos… shocker I know). Later on, it was used during the Inquisition and eventually converted into a prison, which didn’t close until 1951. It wasn’t as impressive as La Mezquita (how could it be?), but still pretty interesting to explore.
We got a late start on Saturday, probably something to do with the fact that we were out til 4 or so Friday night… still kind of early to turn in by Spanish standards, especially on Halloween. Anyway, we were able to walk around the oldest part of town called La Judería, or, literally translated, The Jew-ery. Like all of the other descriptions of old town from the other cities, it had narrow cobblestone streets, tall old buildings, etc. One unique plaza that I really enjoyed seeing was called Plaza de la Corredera, a quite large and open Plaza that used to be where bullfights took place. Actually I need to correct myself: the plaza’s perimeter is defined by tallish orange painted buildings with uniform archways going all the way around, so strictly speaking, the plaza itself isn’t truly open, but the space within is so large that it feels very open. There are lots of restaurants and families hanging out, so it has a fun, relaxed, typically Spanish vibe about it. I would definitely have pictures to show you, but unfortunately, my camera’s battery had already died by this point.
The last touristy place we went were the city’s botanical gardens. They were nice and somewhat interesting, but not the cool Medina Azahara (see disappointment #2) that was the planned destination, so I’m not going to write much about them, as I am still bitter.
I came back on the train today and have been cleaning up and planning some activities for school tomorrow – I better go finish up!
Link for photos:
1. Uncooperative weather. It was rainy and stormy for the majority of the time I was there, frequently making exploratory city wandering more of a head-down power walk to the next destination... at least I did remember to pack my rain jacket!
2. Holidays. Again, Spain and its holidays. November 1 is Todos Santos (okay, legit holiday), but the day’s special bus schedule foiled our plans to go see the Medina Azahara, a cool palace built a little ways outside of the city. A disappointment to not get to see it, but maybe some other time it’ll happen.
3. Camera Battery. Beloved camera failed to inform me of its nearly exhausted battery until I had already reached my destination. Note to self: always bring charger, JUST IN CASE.
Despite these complications, I still had a good time getting to see a new part of Spain. I arrived Thursday night, so the first noteworthy events didn’t happen until the next day, Halloween. I got to visit another auxiliar’s school and attend the Halloween party. It was interesting to get to see another primary school and observe how it was similar/different than my school. The party itself was essentially utter chaos, but still decently entertaining. I got to express my artistic side by painting vampires on the faces 7 year old children, so that was pretty great.
Next, we headed off to the La Mezquita, the primary tourist attraction in Córdoba. For those who are unfamiliar with it, it is an incredible cathedral/mosque (historically, it has been used as both so I don't know which I'm supposed to call it). As you can see from the photos, the dual heritage is clearly displayed through its architectural design. The contrast between the distinct Arabic archways/curvy imagery and the traditional Christian crosses and artwork were interesting to see within the same religious space. One constant element though was the intense detail that went into all of the painting/carving/building. That, along with the cavernous size (we spent at least a couple hours in there, I could’ve spent even more I think…) made it an amazing place to visit.
After that we went to the nearby Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos, a Castillo that used to be a palace for Fernando and Isabel (i.e. the Reyes Cristianos… shocker I know). Later on, it was used during the Inquisition and eventually converted into a prison, which didn’t close until 1951. It wasn’t as impressive as La Mezquita (how could it be?), but still pretty interesting to explore.
We got a late start on Saturday, probably something to do with the fact that we were out til 4 or so Friday night… still kind of early to turn in by Spanish standards, especially on Halloween. Anyway, we were able to walk around the oldest part of town called La Judería, or, literally translated, The Jew-ery. Like all of the other descriptions of old town from the other cities, it had narrow cobblestone streets, tall old buildings, etc. One unique plaza that I really enjoyed seeing was called Plaza de la Corredera, a quite large and open Plaza that used to be where bullfights took place. Actually I need to correct myself: the plaza’s perimeter is defined by tallish orange painted buildings with uniform archways going all the way around, so strictly speaking, the plaza itself isn’t truly open, but the space within is so large that it feels very open. There are lots of restaurants and families hanging out, so it has a fun, relaxed, typically Spanish vibe about it. I would definitely have pictures to show you, but unfortunately, my camera’s battery had already died by this point.
The last touristy place we went were the city’s botanical gardens. They were nice and somewhat interesting, but not the cool Medina Azahara (see disappointment #2) that was the planned destination, so I’m not going to write much about them, as I am still bitter.
I came back on the train today and have been cleaning up and planning some activities for school tomorrow – I better go finish up!
Link for photos:
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| cordoba |
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