All of the sudden I have WAY too much work to do, and it sucks. Arabic is getting a lot harder because it entails so much rote memorization (one of my weakest skills), and I have a surprising number of papers. Blech.
I spent the weekend on an IES trip to Jerez and Cádiz, which was fun. The weather was truly surreal: clear skies, seventies and eighties like early September in Washington. No chill in the air. We saw an equestrian show and went to a wine-tasting (Jerez is the Spanish name for Sherry, which is disgusting) and rode around in huge jeep buses in a national park. I'll get the pictures up eventually...There was a wild boar involved, and lots of sand.
Sorry, I'm feeling lazy about recounting my adventures right now. I'm having a good time, apart from the homework, but I'm getting super-psyched to be home for the holidays. What do I miss most? Americans. I hope I never take them for granted again. We are flawed in our own way, but I love us. Having been brought up in the same culture as the people around you is some sort of bizarre luxury. I'm looking forward to not feeling like an outsider when I'm walking down the street.
But, instead, I'm going to Barcelona this weekend, where it will be painfully obvious that I am a tourist. Goody. But no, it will be great. OK! It's my bedtime. Sweet dreams,
Ella
Monday, November 12, 2007
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Pilgrims
As promised, here is the account of my weekend trip to Galicia:
We traveled overnight on Wednesday and arrived in Santiago de Compostela at 6am on Thursday, wandered through the empty streets, and arrived at the cathedral rather by accident. This cathedral is the destination of the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage route since the middle ages. We met some pilgrims in front of the cathedral that had been walking for a month. I'm not really a fan of the whole cathedral aesthetic, but this one is pretty nice. The remains of James the apostle are supposedly interred there.
We registered and dropped our stuff off at the hostel (which was adorable) and spent the day wandering around the old city (which is very small) and visiting the cultural history museum situated in this monastery. It had this really awesome triple spiral staircase, but we spend altogether too much time there. That evening we watched the sunset over a very New England landscape from the top of a hill, and it was lovely.
The next morning we got up early and rented a car (a minivan, actually) with some people we met at the hostel (I know, it sounds terrible) and drove to the western coast, the Costa de Muerte (that's right: death. It's called that because it is treacherous for ships). We stopped in a town along the way, walked up a hill to an adorable old church, and hung around while tons of old people got out of mass. Inside there was a young guy practicing church music on an electric keyboard, which I thought was sort of funny. It was on the "organ" setting, of course. We bought some fruit and vegetables at the outdoor market and drove on.
We stopped for lunch in our destination town: Cabo Finisterre (Land's End Cape). It is the westernmost point in continental Europe outside of Portugal, and it's really gorgeous. We took a hike up to the top of the hill/mountain looking for these fertility rocks that the guidebook mentions, but I'm still not sure whether we found them. There was a breathtaking view of the skinny part of the cape with the town and everything...you should look at the pictures. We watched the sunset from the lighthouse.
On Saturday we traveled by train to La Coruna, a city on the northern coast of the province. We didn't get to see much of it, but the area of the old city that we walked through was charming and there were people with very long poles fishing off the seaside path of stone. We walked along the coast to the Tower of Hercules, the oldest continuously functioning lighthouse in the world. Legend has it that it was built by Hercules himself.
Traveling that far on the ground I do not recommend. It is exhausting. Also, at least three out of the five of us got food poisoning. Immediately after getting back to Granada, we got pretty violently ill. The culprit? Probably bacon sandwiches. Horrible consequence for tastiness.
We traveled overnight on Wednesday and arrived in Santiago de Compostela at 6am on Thursday, wandered through the empty streets, and arrived at the cathedral rather by accident. This cathedral is the destination of the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage route since the middle ages. We met some pilgrims in front of the cathedral that had been walking for a month. I'm not really a fan of the whole cathedral aesthetic, but this one is pretty nice. The remains of James the apostle are supposedly interred there.
We registered and dropped our stuff off at the hostel (which was adorable) and spent the day wandering around the old city (which is very small) and visiting the cultural history museum situated in this monastery. It had this really awesome triple spiral staircase, but we spend altogether too much time there. That evening we watched the sunset over a very New England landscape from the top of a hill, and it was lovely.
The next morning we got up early and rented a car (a minivan, actually) with some people we met at the hostel (I know, it sounds terrible) and drove to the western coast, the Costa de Muerte (that's right: death. It's called that because it is treacherous for ships). We stopped in a town along the way, walked up a hill to an adorable old church, and hung around while tons of old people got out of mass. Inside there was a young guy practicing church music on an electric keyboard, which I thought was sort of funny. It was on the "organ" setting, of course. We bought some fruit and vegetables at the outdoor market and drove on.
We stopped for lunch in our destination town: Cabo Finisterre (Land's End Cape). It is the westernmost point in continental Europe outside of Portugal, and it's really gorgeous. We took a hike up to the top of the hill/mountain looking for these fertility rocks that the guidebook mentions, but I'm still not sure whether we found them. There was a breathtaking view of the skinny part of the cape with the town and everything...you should look at the pictures. We watched the sunset from the lighthouse.
On Saturday we traveled by train to La Coruna, a city on the northern coast of the province. We didn't get to see much of it, but the area of the old city that we walked through was charming and there were people with very long poles fishing off the seaside path of stone. We walked along the coast to the Tower of Hercules, the oldest continuously functioning lighthouse in the world. Legend has it that it was built by Hercules himself.
Traveling that far on the ground I do not recommend. It is exhausting. Also, at least three out of the five of us got food poisoning. Immediately after getting back to Granada, we got pretty violently ill. The culprit? Probably bacon sandwiches. Horrible consequence for tastiness.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Spooky
Happy Halloween! It is an invisible holiday here, but I had a totally creepy (and vague) dream last night to commemorate the event.
The good news is that Inez, my dearest room mate, is staying at Haverford next semester instead of going abroad! I am very excited to live with her again. I have a lot less anxiety about going back now.
So I'm getting on a bus in an hour or so that will take me far, far away with some girls from my program. It's my first real trip without IES planning everything, and I hope everything goes OK. We are going to Galicia, the land of rain and Gaelic tradition, and I think it's going to be gorgeous. I can't wait for real vegetation! I'll let you know how it went on Sunday or Monday.
Wish me luck! (Good luck!)
Ella
The good news is that Inez, my dearest room mate, is staying at Haverford next semester instead of going abroad! I am very excited to live with her again. I have a lot less anxiety about going back now.
So I'm getting on a bus in an hour or so that will take me far, far away with some girls from my program. It's my first real trip without IES planning everything, and I hope everything goes OK. We are going to Galicia, the land of rain and Gaelic tradition, and I think it's going to be gorgeous. I can't wait for real vegetation! I'll let you know how it went on Sunday or Monday.
Wish me luck! (Good luck!)
Ella
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Morocco is Lovely
I got back yesterday from my five-day trip to Morocco, and am so glad that I went! It changed my perspective on the Arab World, on Spain and on the United States. I'm going to tell it chronologically:
On Friday morning a group of about thirty of us took a bus to Gibraltar, the port city owned by Great Britain. We took a little tour of the city and the huge rock that towers over the ocean. There are apes running wild in Gibraltar (the only place in Europe), and you'll see some pictures of them if you look on my Picasa web album. The weather was very temperamental but but I was thrilled to be in an English-speaking place again (it had been a long time!). There were a lot of sailors. We spent the night in the adjacent city on the Spanish side of the border: Línea.
On Saturday we drove to Algeciras, met the guide for our 15-person group (Ben, from Connecticut), and rode the ferry over the Strait to Tangier. The first place we went was this open-air market full of meat. Lots of animal carcasses, fish, chickens (dead). Also olives, which contributed to the somewhat nauseating smell. I was a little freaked out. We ate couscous for lunch at a women's center called DARNA, which teaches women in bad circumstances the skills they need to make a living (computing skills, textile manufacturing, basic schooling). We talked to a few of the women who worked there. They were only in their twenties, and were very friendly. In the afternoon we got on the bus again and drove to Rabat, the capital.
On the way, we pulled over to the side of the road and got short camel-rides on the beach. It was fun, but silly. They smelled bad, but had pretty eyelashes and didn't try to spit on us. We stopped at a coastal city called Asilah, and were shown around by a friend of Ben's who skipped out of his job at a restaurant while his boss was at prayer. On the highway we passed by more than one serious accident, with fatalities. It was scary.
When we got to Rabat, we met our host families (three students to a family). The best English-speaker in our house was Jaula, and she was 21; she lives with her parents, her brother, her sister, and a New Mexican exchange student. This girl, Michelle, is one brave cookie. There are only four people in her program. The first night we had the most delicious meatballs in sauce. They were slightly spicy and they were in this big communal dish we ate from with bread in hand. Mmmm... The layout of the house was so different from apartments here or in the U.S.: the middle is a large square space with a railing that looks down into the courtyard of the family that lives downstairs. There are basically four rooms: parents' bedroom, guest room/prayer room, children's room, and living/dining room. The kitchen and bathroom are squeezed in the corners, and the other rooms are one to a side of the square. The walls in the guest room are lined with a continuous couch, where we made our beds. There is lots of pretty tile and elaborately embroidered cushions. We watched part of a video of a wedding that took place in that house, of a cousin to a British guy who converted to Islam in order to marry. There were lots of wedding dresses involved, and apparently the weddings go from about midnight to 8am.
On Sunday we had pancake-like things and buns with sesame for breakfast and went to a discussion with a professor of the university about Islam and perceptions between the West and Islamic worlds. I was bored almost to tears, I'm sad to say, because the entirety of the discussion consisted of Professor Zaki citing and justifying verses from the Qur'an. After that we went to these Roman ruins at a site called Chellah (see pictures). There is an old woman sitting by a pool there who sells hardboiled eggs to peel and thrown to the eels as a fertility ritual. No one in our group particularly wanted to get pregnant, so we didn't do that, but the ruins were pretty. On the way back to Rabat proper we stopped at the Mausoleum of King Mohammad V and Hasan II, which smelled unmistakably of kittens.
In the afternoon we went to the beach, where there was a conspicuous absence of women, and then met up with some Moroccan university students who showed us around the market and talked with us. I really enjoyed meeting the two Moroccan men who walked with Callie, Tanya and I: Yasid and Bashir. They are English literature majors and nice guys. There were some subtle sexist overtones, but in their context they were cool people. That evening my temporary room-mates (Tanya and Jess) and I went to the bath house, which was completely different from the supposedly Arab bath house in Granada. In this place there were just tons of topless women with buckets, scrubbing themselves with exfoliating mittens and pouring water on their heads. No pools involved. We had no idea what was going on, but some nice ladies sort of adopted us and showed us what to do while laughing at us.
On Monday morning we said goodbye to our host families and rode the little bus through the countryside and up into the Rif Mountains to visit this tiny village and be introduced to the agricultural side of Morocco. We ate lunch (couscous with vegetables again) in the house of a farming family (26-year-old husband, wife, and two young children). We brought an interpreter and talked about what their life is like and what impressions they have of the U.S. The most interesting thing about the life of the poor in Morocco to me is that, though they are very poor, everyone has a satellite dish. Everyone. They watch all sorts of things that make it over the Atlantic: TV movies that flopped in the U.S., Jackie Chan movies, and popular shows like Prison Break. We walked through the village and up the hill strewn with trash and were rewarded with an incredible view of the surrounding mountains. The children were curious and cute, and as we were walking back to the bus this old woman started laughing hysterically at us.
We then made our way to Chefchaoen and dropped our stuff off in a really nice hostel and went shopping (people in Chefchaoen speak Spanish, for which I was absurdly grateful). The bottom section of all outside walls is painted blue, and it is the most charming city to walk through. It has definitely felt the effects of tourism, but not in too tragic a way. We had tea at a cafe and dinner at a restaurant. For dessert I had oranges with cinnamon. After dinner we had a closing discussion with our group and told jokes, and it felt really cohesive and comfortable. In the morning we walked up the hill above the city and got a great view of the valley as the sun was rising. We got on the bus soon after and drove straight through to Ceuta (Spanish city in Morocco), got on the ferry and drove back to Granada. On the ferry and on the boat I talked for a long time with the program director Javier (nicest guy in the world) about Morocco and about the Northwest (he used to live in Ellensburg), Leavenworth and Vancouver B.C. It made me miss the natural landscapes of my home, which I hope I will no longer take for granted.
If you managed to read that whole thing, congratulations. If not, it's cool. I'm not going to wax philosophical about my journey, but write me if you want to know more. It was an eye-opener.
Ella
On Friday morning a group of about thirty of us took a bus to Gibraltar, the port city owned by Great Britain. We took a little tour of the city and the huge rock that towers over the ocean. There are apes running wild in Gibraltar (the only place in Europe), and you'll see some pictures of them if you look on my Picasa web album. The weather was very temperamental but but I was thrilled to be in an English-speaking place again (it had been a long time!). There were a lot of sailors. We spent the night in the adjacent city on the Spanish side of the border: Línea.
On Saturday we drove to Algeciras, met the guide for our 15-person group (Ben, from Connecticut), and rode the ferry over the Strait to Tangier. The first place we went was this open-air market full of meat. Lots of animal carcasses, fish, chickens (dead). Also olives, which contributed to the somewhat nauseating smell. I was a little freaked out. We ate couscous for lunch at a women's center called DARNA, which teaches women in bad circumstances the skills they need to make a living (computing skills, textile manufacturing, basic schooling). We talked to a few of the women who worked there. They were only in their twenties, and were very friendly. In the afternoon we got on the bus again and drove to Rabat, the capital.
On the way, we pulled over to the side of the road and got short camel-rides on the beach. It was fun, but silly. They smelled bad, but had pretty eyelashes and didn't try to spit on us. We stopped at a coastal city called Asilah, and were shown around by a friend of Ben's who skipped out of his job at a restaurant while his boss was at prayer. On the highway we passed by more than one serious accident, with fatalities. It was scary.
When we got to Rabat, we met our host families (three students to a family). The best English-speaker in our house was Jaula, and she was 21; she lives with her parents, her brother, her sister, and a New Mexican exchange student. This girl, Michelle, is one brave cookie. There are only four people in her program. The first night we had the most delicious meatballs in sauce. They were slightly spicy and they were in this big communal dish we ate from with bread in hand. Mmmm... The layout of the house was so different from apartments here or in the U.S.: the middle is a large square space with a railing that looks down into the courtyard of the family that lives downstairs. There are basically four rooms: parents' bedroom, guest room/prayer room, children's room, and living/dining room. The kitchen and bathroom are squeezed in the corners, and the other rooms are one to a side of the square. The walls in the guest room are lined with a continuous couch, where we made our beds. There is lots of pretty tile and elaborately embroidered cushions. We watched part of a video of a wedding that took place in that house, of a cousin to a British guy who converted to Islam in order to marry. There were lots of wedding dresses involved, and apparently the weddings go from about midnight to 8am.
On Sunday we had pancake-like things and buns with sesame for breakfast and went to a discussion with a professor of the university about Islam and perceptions between the West and Islamic worlds. I was bored almost to tears, I'm sad to say, because the entirety of the discussion consisted of Professor Zaki citing and justifying verses from the Qur'an. After that we went to these Roman ruins at a site called Chellah (see pictures). There is an old woman sitting by a pool there who sells hardboiled eggs to peel and thrown to the eels as a fertility ritual. No one in our group particularly wanted to get pregnant, so we didn't do that, but the ruins were pretty. On the way back to Rabat proper we stopped at the Mausoleum of King Mohammad V and Hasan II, which smelled unmistakably of kittens.
In the afternoon we went to the beach, where there was a conspicuous absence of women, and then met up with some Moroccan university students who showed us around the market and talked with us. I really enjoyed meeting the two Moroccan men who walked with Callie, Tanya and I: Yasid and Bashir. They are English literature majors and nice guys. There were some subtle sexist overtones, but in their context they were cool people. That evening my temporary room-mates (Tanya and Jess) and I went to the bath house, which was completely different from the supposedly Arab bath house in Granada. In this place there were just tons of topless women with buckets, scrubbing themselves with exfoliating mittens and pouring water on their heads. No pools involved. We had no idea what was going on, but some nice ladies sort of adopted us and showed us what to do while laughing at us.
On Monday morning we said goodbye to our host families and rode the little bus through the countryside and up into the Rif Mountains to visit this tiny village and be introduced to the agricultural side of Morocco. We ate lunch (couscous with vegetables again) in the house of a farming family (26-year-old husband, wife, and two young children). We brought an interpreter and talked about what their life is like and what impressions they have of the U.S. The most interesting thing about the life of the poor in Morocco to me is that, though they are very poor, everyone has a satellite dish. Everyone. They watch all sorts of things that make it over the Atlantic: TV movies that flopped in the U.S., Jackie Chan movies, and popular shows like Prison Break. We walked through the village and up the hill strewn with trash and were rewarded with an incredible view of the surrounding mountains. The children were curious and cute, and as we were walking back to the bus this old woman started laughing hysterically at us.
We then made our way to Chefchaoen and dropped our stuff off in a really nice hostel and went shopping (people in Chefchaoen speak Spanish, for which I was absurdly grateful). The bottom section of all outside walls is painted blue, and it is the most charming city to walk through. It has definitely felt the effects of tourism, but not in too tragic a way. We had tea at a cafe and dinner at a restaurant. For dessert I had oranges with cinnamon. After dinner we had a closing discussion with our group and told jokes, and it felt really cohesive and comfortable. In the morning we walked up the hill above the city and got a great view of the valley as the sun was rising. We got on the bus soon after and drove straight through to Ceuta (Spanish city in Morocco), got on the ferry and drove back to Granada. On the ferry and on the boat I talked for a long time with the program director Javier (nicest guy in the world) about Morocco and about the Northwest (he used to live in Ellensburg), Leavenworth and Vancouver B.C. It made me miss the natural landscapes of my home, which I hope I will no longer take for granted.
If you managed to read that whole thing, congratulations. If not, it's cool. I'm not going to wax philosophical about my journey, but write me if you want to know more. It was an eye-opener.
Ella
Friday, October 19, 2007
Path of Homo Ergaster?
This is not a real post. I just wanted to leave a message for you all that I am leaving for Morocco today and will be back on Tuesday, when you shall hear all about it.
In my prehistory class we are learning about the possible paths of early man to Europe from Africa, and the Strait of Gibraltar is the second most plausible. Pretty sweet.
Ella
In my prehistory class we are learning about the possible paths of early man to Europe from Africa, and the Strait of Gibraltar is the second most plausible. Pretty sweet.
Ella
Sunday, October 14, 2007
You very beautiful
I like dancing a lot. I can do it for many hours, and if I'm in the right mood, it doesn't matter what the music is. The thing about dance clubs in Granada is that they don't really open until about 2am, so you end up staying out very late if you want to get a couple of hours in.
I am sorry to say that reports of sleaziness of the type of Spanish men that frequent these clubs are not exaggerated. If you go dancing with your girlfriends, as I tend to do, you need to be prepared. As far as I can make out, there are three types of creeps:
1) Doesn't try to talk to you or even dance with you; would rather leer from afar and/or cop a feel as you walk by.
2) Spontaneously decides to dance very intimately with you without saying anything or even making eye contact.
3) Repeatedly tells you how beautiful you are, follows you around the dance floor, will not shut up about "Where are you from? Do you like Spain? What is your name? How do you like Spanish guys? Do you think I'm attractive?". Keeps trying to strike up conversation even when you tell him in intelligible Spanish to go away.
There were some seriously persistent guys of the third persuasion last night (and they were young! Like high school!), and we got so worked up that we had to leave or pretend the music was metal so we could start moshing (i.e. "accidentally" throw a couple elbows to the face). We left. Though the experience of being pursued in that way is unpleasant, it gives me a peculiar pleasure to feel that belligerent.
Ella
I am sorry to say that reports of sleaziness of the type of Spanish men that frequent these clubs are not exaggerated. If you go dancing with your girlfriends, as I tend to do, you need to be prepared. As far as I can make out, there are three types of creeps:
1) Doesn't try to talk to you or even dance with you; would rather leer from afar and/or cop a feel as you walk by.
2) Spontaneously decides to dance very intimately with you without saying anything or even making eye contact.
3) Repeatedly tells you how beautiful you are, follows you around the dance floor, will not shut up about "Where are you from? Do you like Spain? What is your name? How do you like Spanish guys? Do you think I'm attractive?". Keeps trying to strike up conversation even when you tell him in intelligible Spanish to go away.
There were some seriously persistent guys of the third persuasion last night (and they were young! Like high school!), and we got so worked up that we had to leave or pretend the music was metal so we could start moshing (i.e. "accidentally" throw a couple elbows to the face). We left. Though the experience of being pursued in that way is unpleasant, it gives me a peculiar pleasure to feel that belligerent.
Ella
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Plans
I thought I'd talk a little bit about my plans so that when I recount my travels it's not totally out of left field (baseball aside: Yankees suck. Good work, Indians).
Not this coming weekend but the weekend after that, I will be in Morocco for five days with my program! Super cool. We got to choose people to be in our group (each group has about twenty students), so I'm with my closest friends here, which is going to be great. I'm a little nervous because despite Arabic classes I know less than fifty words, all of which are nouns. I won't be able to communicate in Arabic at all, so I hope people speak Spanish.
We have a long weekend the first days of November, and at the moment I am planning on traveling by bus and train to Galicia, in the north westernmost part of Spain (above Portugal, on the Atlantic) with a couple friends. I am really excited about that trip because I get to ride a train through the countryside, and because everyone agrees that Galicia is totally gorgeous. With any luck there will be forests and castles on cliffs involved. I admit I have an unrealistically romantic notion of the region.
The final trip I have planned is to Barcelona, during the third weekend of November. I sort of doubt it will be that great. But whatever. Maybe I'll meet a famous futbolista.
OK! Those are the plans that I have, and they please me. I am missing a bit of class, but am I really here to learn about Mao Zedong's philosophy? No, no I'm not. :D
Ella
Not this coming weekend but the weekend after that, I will be in Morocco for five days with my program! Super cool. We got to choose people to be in our group (each group has about twenty students), so I'm with my closest friends here, which is going to be great. I'm a little nervous because despite Arabic classes I know less than fifty words, all of which are nouns. I won't be able to communicate in Arabic at all, so I hope people speak Spanish.
We have a long weekend the first days of November, and at the moment I am planning on traveling by bus and train to Galicia, in the north westernmost part of Spain (above Portugal, on the Atlantic) with a couple friends. I am really excited about that trip because I get to ride a train through the countryside, and because everyone agrees that Galicia is totally gorgeous. With any luck there will be forests and castles on cliffs involved. I admit I have an unrealistically romantic notion of the region.
The final trip I have planned is to Barcelona, during the third weekend of November. I sort of doubt it will be that great. But whatever. Maybe I'll meet a famous futbolista.
OK! Those are the plans that I have, and they please me. I am missing a bit of class, but am I really here to learn about Mao Zedong's philosophy? No, no I'm not. :D
Ella
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