Good things about going home:

I've been keeping a list. It's motivational so I won't be sad about leaving. Mostly I am SUPER excited about being reunited with my family (even if for just one day!) and friends. So much so that it can't even go on the list! I really want to go homeeeee.
And! Here are more good things about going home:

1. My iPhone will have service. And when people call me I'll have the pleasure of hearing the ring tone that Jack Cottrell recorded for me :-) Also, I haven't sent a single text message since February 2.
2. Madrid's freakishly abnormal eating schedule/habits will no longer reign in cruel tyranny over my stomach.
3. Peanut butter.
4. Carpeting. Great invention. The Arabs tried to introduce it to Spain in the 700s AD but it never caught on, apparently.
5. EGGS FOR BREAKFAST. ACTUAL BREAKFAST BREAKFAST, NOT JUST COOKIES. Hmm, another one about food.
6. Hairdryer? What is that? Sounds pretty luxurious, whatever it is (the ancient little one I was using here died in March. Sad).
7. The cleaning lady won't move my crap around anymore and throw stuff away without asking. It ticks me off. And yes, I really do prefer to clean by myself. Don't touch my stuff!
8. I just really miss chilling at home.
9. Sayonara, creepers!
10. Being reunited with my books and the majority of my wardrobe
11. Bagels, cream cheese, grape jelly, pita chips, tomato soup, cornbread, making bread, baking, cooking in general, actually. Being able to use a kitchen. That would be nice.
12. Normal bedtimes.
13. Sporcle with Ali/Christy/Stacia/Mom
14. My lungs will appreciate freedom from second-hand smoke
15. I just really really really want to go home.
16. I AM GOING TO MAINE!!!!!

The lovely month of April

Springtime arrived and it’s been pretty darn fun. My friends and I kicked off April right with a trip to the Sierra Guadarrama to climb a mountain. Here’s a picture of me and my friend Lu taking a break and just enjoying the spectacular view. Can you spot us? (click on it to zoom in)

Then I spent the next weekend on a nice CEA excursion to Córdoba and Sevilla. Everything was really beautiful. Here's me and a friend in front of the Great Mosque of Córdoba.

We also saw a Flamenco show in Sevilla. They're very proud of their Flamenco. I liked the fan dance part.

This is one of my favorite photos from Seville. That's the world's third largest cathedral, by the way. And the largest Gothic cathedral ever built. Though the tall tower on the right is a moorish leftover, I believe.

Another weekend we had a nice dinner/birthday party at a friend's house and helped her cook Mexican food! Here's me learning to make tortillas. I was pretty thrilled.

Other than that, I enjoyed some great intercambios (I learn more Spanish that way!), visits to the Prado Museum, and lots of park-going (my friend is trying to see if she can visit each of Madrid’s parks this semester. Very ambitious, we’re maybe halfway there).
We saw some pieces of the Berlin wall at Parque de Berlin. That was cool. Another highlight for me was renting a rowboat and having some great conversations with friends while floating around a pretty little lake at Casa de Campo.

And we concluded the month with a shopping/ photo-taking trip around our favorite places in the city center. The photo below is me at the Plaza Mayor in Old Madrid. It’s been loads of fun and I’m too bored with talking about myself to write any more, so bye.

The world is chock full of good people. And I keep meeting them! (Italy, Part II)

In continuation! On Thursday, April 1, had breakfast in my hostel in Rome with my freakinawesome roomies, then checked out and hopped on a 4-hr train to Florence. Spent the afternoon there, wandering the amazingly gorgeous city, planning my itinerary, skyping parents :-), and bartering at the outdoor market thingy. After a delicious pizza dinner, went to a cute little church down the street for a performance of “romantic arias” in period costume. I don’t know how authentic the dresses were. The soprano’s skyscraper of a wig fell off at the climax of a high crescendo… that was interesting.

On Good Friday our hostel gave a free tour of Florence. I met a legit porteño (from Buenos Aires) who lives in Barcelona, actually, and we decided to be friends and accidentally spent the entire day together. Very very very cool city. Everything is beautiful, impressive, and historically important. Loved it. And yes, we tried the gelato. Yes, it was good.

Anyhow, I went off on my own to pick up my (reserved) ticket to the Uffizi Gallery but randomly met back up with Daniel, my Argentine friend, at the coat check, haha! So we did the ENTIRE museum together and concluded that the ancient sculpture was the best part. Go figure.

And yes, I saw David, and yes, he is perfect. He’s the awe-inspiring idol, the Gallery is his temple, the tourism people are his priests, and the tourists are the dedicated pilgrims that travel any distance, spare no expense, and endure whatever hardship necessary to pay him homage.

Had a long conversation in the market with a vendor dude from Bangladesh who told me all about his culture, his country, the history of India, why he moved to Italy, and why it’s such a great place to work. He had some interesting insights. Also chatted with the bookseller dude in the libreria evangelica about what it’s like for them to live in Florence. Interesting.

Ok, just a super quick bit about the rest of the week. Trying not to bore. Saturday night at a candlelit vigil in a convent (in Rome) was a magical experience. Rather profound. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it, at least I hope not. (See facebook video)

On Easter morning at the Vatican I waited in line for a couple of hours in the rain to get into St. Peter’s square. Which was fine, because I was so excited, and besides, in those types of situations you always have camaraderie with the poor souls waiting with you. While in line, I chatted with some American students, with a happy Latin American family, and some nuns. One of them had dropped her rosary and I found it for her, which was pretty darn awesome, I must say. It just sounds good: I helped a nun find her lost rosary. Doesn’t it? (photo/video: my view of the Pope, etc. for Easter Mass)

On Monday I took a train to Camucia to visit a friend from Union who’s studying there, yay! On the way, had an interesting conversation with a girl from Vietnam. One of those weird connections where I left thinking I really could have been best friends with her. I’m still amazed by how awesomely intelligent and kind she was. She was good at asking really interesting questions… and genuinely caring about my answers. I want to be more like that.

So I kinda accidentally hitchhiked… twice. I arrived in Camucia and was waiting for a bus to Cortona when I realized it was a holiday and the next bus wasn’t coming for three more hours. Desperately hoping I was wrong, I asked a woman nearby if she knew anything about it… She answered in English! She and her husband and little girl were on vacation from Australia, touring Italy by car. They must’ve felt sorry for me, because they gave me a lift up the mountain, quite out of their way. They said they were so grateful just to chat with another English-speaker. Gosh, nicest people EVER. I had completely different adventures coming back down again, but they were a bit frustrating. Anyhow, Allyn showed me Cortona, her beautiful little town. It was SO lovely to see a familiar face from back home. And then she took me to her ceramics studio, showed me her work, and instructed me in throwing my first pot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And my second, too, haha. I can’t even describe how awesome that day was.

Oh, Tuesday was a beast of a day, too. First I had a leisurely breakfast with a girl from St. Norbert College, WI. I made her talk to me about DePere, a town I loved living in (against all odds). But apparently Hansen’s has been closed for some years now. Sad! Ok, sorry, moving on!

I did the Forum, Palatine, Coliseum, Pantheon, S. Pietro in Vincoli, Sta. Maria Sopra Minerva, Via Appia, Catacombs of San Calisto, and saw the Santa Scala (from which I left feeling like angry Martin Luther in the scene from the Joseph Finnes movie, haha) all in one day. I think I took eight buses to enable all that. (photos: at top, me in the Coliseum. At bottom, Michelangelo's Moses at S. Pietro in Vincoli)

One more random tidbit: on a bus on the Via Appia Antica, I gave my seat to an old man. Then, turned out we took the same tour of the Catacombs (in Spanish). After, he came up to me and (in Spanish) said something like “On a bus full of people, you left me a seat. You are one of the best-mannered young persons I’ve ever met.” And thanked me. I was like, woah! I dunno, that left a big impression on me. It was, like, Flattery for Mary Week or something.

Anyhow, a completely amazing trip. I feel pretty grateful about it. Sorry this post was so long in coming: writing them takes a very long time.

There’s No Place Like Rome!

For Spring Break, I spent 9 days on my own in Italy. I was definitely apprehensive about going alone, but it turned out to be pretty darn awesome.

Unfortunately, my camera memory card decided to die, so I lost most of my pictures. Will take it to a repair shop this week, but I’m not hopeful about it. But anyhow, it doesn’t matter that much. I saw a lot of tourists who were glued to their camera screens the whole time, kinda missing the whole point of the experience. So I wasn’t taking a ton, anyway, but was mostly focused on just BEING there and observing. But thank God for the iPhone, which continues to pick up the slack when all other technology fails me. So, aprovechen!

The day I arrived in Rome was lovely and sunny and I basically just wandered around the city aimlessly with a guidebook. Ate my leftover-bocadillo lunch by the fountain at Piazza Repubblica, just chillin and people-watching. Visited some huge churches covered in gold leaf and typical Catholic crap. Just kidding, I was paying attention: Santa Maria degli Angeli (inside the ruins of the Baths of Diocletian, converted to a church by Michelangelo) and the sorta-nearby Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore (humongous, ancient, and impressive). But, as I was recovering from a freakishly early flight that morning, mostly tried to get orientated and a feel for the city and stuff.

The next morning, Wednesday, I hied me to Vatican City for the Papal Audience at St. Peter’s square, in some ways an even cooler experience than Easter Mass itself because the crowds weren’t so crazy, I was close enough to see everything (had a golden ticket, actually), the sun was shining, and the Pope did a lot more talking. I actually understood more than I’d expected of Latin and Italian, and Spanish of course. There were bits of English, too. It was fun to see how excited all the people were about cheering and waving at Benedicto as he did his rounds of the square in his cool little pope mobile/golf cart thingy. They came prepared with flags and chants, too! My favorite: ¡Se nota, se siente, el Papa está presente! Yes, I was surrounded by hispanohablantes. They had a chant about the Pope exiting the square, too. Wish I could remember it! But yeah, loved the diversity of the crowd. People from all over the world! So many languages! Cool stuff. (photo: me at the Vatican on Sunday. No pictures left from Wednesday at all)

Bought some postcards, munched a sandwich and some cookies, and headed to the Vatican Museums to meet up with my little tour group. Guided tour of the museums, Sistine Chapel, and Basilica= best splurge ever. SO worth it (especially since it included tickets to the Papal audience and Easter Mass). Anyhow, the Vatican blew my mind. Loved the ancient sculptures, had a “moment” with Laocoön, admired some goddess chick wearing an AMAZING marble dress, haha. But really, one could spend years wandering through the galleries and still not have enough time there. Oh, I saw Nero’s gigantic bathtub, too, made of priceless purple porphyry.

Sistine Chapel: profoundly moving. GOT it. Well, as much as a person can in 30 min. Do I need to blog about this? bleh. Have a conversation with me.

Aside from Michelangelo’s Pietà, blog-worthy details about St. Peter’s Basilica: It’s freakin huge (the Statue of Liberty would fit inside with room to spare), covers an area of 5.7 acres and slathered in gold, lapis lazuli, and other flashy and expensive things. Also contains the bodies of two popes on display. Creepsters. Really though, it’s a nice experience. I appreciated the intricate mosaic copies that replaced all the original paintings. So meticulous! And I think Bernini’s 98-ft-tall canopy altar thingy rivals Solomon’s Temple as far as the whole inability to weigh the quantity of bronze-thing goes (see picture: Bernini's canopy under Michelangelo's dome). Overall very impressive, and isn’t that the point? I snapped a neat pic of a nun gazing at the statue of St. Peter that I am miffed about losing, but oh well. Took too many pics of Pietà, should have just paid attention more.

Oh, also came across my two hostel roomies on the Basilica balcony. Spent breakfast, morning, dinner, and evening with them having a pretty fabulous time and awesome conversations. All the Germans I’ve met have been generally awesome, actually. We were too tired to go out that night, so we had a “water party” in the hostel, turning word games into drinking games and generously refilling each other’s water bottles. It was hilarious. Loved those guys.

Another funny moment: I was trying to find a particular bus stop and having many adventures asking passersby where it was, basically with horribly contorted mixes of Italian and Spanish like, “Prego, dunde está la fermata de autobús de línea cuarenta?” Must have been dreadfully confusing. Finally, getting really tired of walking, I asked one more girl. She answered in perfectly clear American English, “Sorry, I don’t speak Italian.” (yeah, uhh, me neither, unfortunately) And helped me find the bus stop. Made me laugh. I scampered off and yelled over my shoulder, “You look European!”

I think this post is long enough now.

Halfway thru the semester

It's been awhile since the last post. I'll be brief.
Saturday, March 13- Day Trip with CEA to El Escorial, a cute little town in the mountains where Phillip II built his palace/monastery/crypt for the rulers of Spain. It's the most Castillian of Castillian sites... I loved it. Modest, reverent, and still completely awe-inspiring. The library took my breath away. Overall, maybe the best touristy experience yet. (photo at right- courtyard of San Lorenzo Monastery)

Same day- drove through the Guadarrama mountains to the site of Franco's giant monument to himself, his tomb, confusingly named Valle de los caídos. Completely amazing, even if just for the snowy peaks all around the 505 ft tall stone cross. (photo left)

Sunday, March 14, was the first day of spring weather. My friends and I celebrated the sunshine by spending all afternoon in Retiro Park and walking around the city that evening (photo below).

The next weekend (March 19), hit up the big Impressionist art exhibit currently in Madrid. Made friends with a Spanish lady and her daughter while waiting in line. They let me share their audio guide for the entire tour! Renoir took me to a park on a sunny summer day. Manet brought me to a dark wharf under a sombre full moon. Degas' dancers delighted. Then Monet transported me to the seaside, where I watched a regatta under full sail and could almost feel the wind and smell the salt spray. I left feeling like I'd spent all day outside.

Friday night wasn't nearly as impressive to recount, but nourished my soul just as much :-) Went a friend's house with some other girls, talked about art and life, made dinner (from scratch and without a recipe, mind you!) and watched a good movie. It was nice. Went out with them on Saturday. Spent Sunday in the park with them. Had them over to my apt. on Monday. It was a good weekend.

Spending my spare time this week in preparation for Spring Break. Heading to Rome on March 30! Then to Florence April 1-3, then finishing up Holy Week back in Rome. Should be good. It's just a lot of work to organize a trip completely on my own. Let's just say I'm growing and learning a lot. Anyhow, looking forward to some amazing art. And history. And art history. And some serious Catholic pomp. Bring it on.

Prado, Thyssen, Reina Sofia, and Toledo! Oh-so-many goodies.

Hola a todos! I've had a simply splendid week full of art, culture, good conversations, and touristy things besides. I've now been to the Prado museum twice with my Art History class, and AM LOVING IT. It's pretty amazing. My fave so far is the El Greco collection. Here's The Trinity. Gorgeous colors and expressive figures...

I've also been to the Reina Sofia museum (modern art, lotsa Picasso and Miró and Dalí) where I spent some quality time in awe-struck silence with Guernica.



And the final of the Big Three of Madrid's fabulous art museums: the Thyssen-Bornemisza (heavier on 19th century and impressionism). Went with some friends thinking that we'd possibly be able to peruse most of the galleries because it's the smallest of the three museums, but no! Spent almost 2 hours and couldn't even finish walking thru a quarter of the museum. Oh boy, four months aren't such a very long time, after all! I will definitely be back to each museum... Frequently.





I've been more successful talking with Spaniards this week. Wandering around, exploring shops on my street has been fruitful: I met a woman who wants me to tutor her in English! Cool. And intercambios (language exchanges) are going well, too! Meeting lots of great people :-)





Highlight of the weekend: day trip to Toledo (no, people, not Ohio). A really medieval-looking town rich in history, art, architecture, all that good stuff. It rained all day and never got above 41º F, but Toledo left an undeniably awesome impression. Here are some pictures of the walls around the city.









I liked visiting the churches/mosques/synagogues. This is a photo of the interior of the Mezquita del Cristo de la Luz, Toledo. Interesting name, Mosque of Christ, eh? The building was a Christian church during the era of the Visigoths, who made Toledo the capital of Spain. Then the moors invaded in the 700s and converted it to a mosque. Then the Catholics made it a church again after Toledo was reconquered in the 1080s. All these changes make for SUCH a cool mix of architecture! Here's a photo of the interior, featuring Jesus and some apostles... in a mosque. Cool.






Another interesting place name: Synagogue of Santa María la Blanca. Here's a pic of me in the courtyard, enjoying the view. Anyhow, I really really liked visiting this synagogue. It has a sad history, of course, because the Jews were all expelled from Spain in 1492, or forced to convert. But now the Church uses the building as a kind of museum, kind of celebration of Jewish culture in Spain. And I am a huge fan of Christian/Jewish reconciliation ;-)



AND! While in Toledo I got to see El Greco's masterpiece, the Burial of Count Orgaz! (photo below, detail) The tour guide helped us study for the art history test coming up this week, haha.



Anyhow, It's been a good weekend. Church was GREAT this morning. I'm so happy to have found such a great community here! And yes, I've been to some typical Spanish masses, too, and appreciated as much as I can considering my overall ignorance of language and tradition...

Welp! 22 h! Dinner time. Mari Carmen continues to stuff me with delicious homemade food. Life is good. Hope you've enjoyed. Hasta luego...

The Rain in Spain.

Hello, all! It's the weekend again, yay! Here's a picture of me and fellow CEA students in the Hispanic Studies program, the night we went out for Tapas together. Classes are great. I'm pretty genuinely interested in all of them, both my two language classes, art history, and Spanish society. I am learning so much good stuff!

I'm about to head out to an Intercambio, or language exchange. It's pretty neat, actually. A group of people, usually students, get together in a restaurant or bar to practice Spanish and English. It's a great way to meet Spaniards and learn about the language and culture!

Tomorrow I get to go to the Prado Museum, yay! Free guided tour with my art class. Pretty sweet.
Apparently Spain is having the wettest, coldest winter in decades. Awesome. I hope we don't dissolve in the rain! Happily, I did see the sun yesterday. It cheered me right up. More rain today tho, ick. O spring, come quickly and do not delay! Here's a pic of flowers around one of the pretty little Mediterranean houses I walk by on my way to school.

In other news, my cell phone decided to heal itself. I'm no longer disconnected from the world. And I have free incoming calls, so please do make use of it :-) Let me know if you want my number.