PRESHCO Thanksgiving

So this year was my first Thanksgiving without any of my family members. PRESHCO organized a big dinner at this restaurant called Casa Rubio, which is this nicer restaurant right near the Facultad. I was definitely looking forward to the dinner because even though it wouldn't be the same without my family, at least it would be a big dinner with all my Preshquitos. As I expected, I had a lovely time. When we arrived, on each of our plates was a flower wrapped in a piece of paper, which turned out to be the menu for the evening.

The first thing they brought out was fried shrimp, or as my friend Will kept saying, popcorn shrimp. He kept joking that they got them from a bucket from some fast food place. The second dish that arrived was fried eggplant with honey. Now THAT was tasty. Oh, and I forgot to mention that there was a basket of bread that I believe they refilled twice. And this bread was like hard rolls where you break it open and it's soft inside. My friends Pedro and Will seemed to make it there responsibility to keep passing me the bread when it would arrive to the table. It's important to have good friends with you at big meals :) After the eggplant they brought out a plate of vegetables, which was fine, but at that point we were all ready for the turkey.

The turkey dish then came out, served with sweet potatoes, nuts, and some sort of dried fruit all covered in gravy. It was very good. Not the same of course, but I'm grateful that we even got a Thanksgiving meal, considering we're in Spain.

This is my plate after I've eaten everything. Naturally I was so excited for the food that I forgot to take a photo BEFORE eating it. I've never been known for my patience when it comes to food. My host parents joke about it because at every single meal I burn my tongue because I never wait for it to cool.

After the turkey they brought in this pumpkin tort thing. It looked pretty cool. Unfortunately it didn't taste like pumpkin pie at all. I don't think it was sweet enough, but I appreciated the effort. If nothing else, it was very pretty to look at.

After the dessert, they surprised us with a singing group I believe from the Universidad de Cordoba's agronomy school, or something like that. Anyways they were dressed in the typical Spanish attire, and played various famous Spanish songs. I REALLY wish I knew the words to the songs so that I could look them up later. Especially since now I can recognize the songs, I just can't usually catch too many of the words. They also do this hilarious toast that I only caught a few of the words. I would really love to know the whole things. One guy would lead the toast and all the rest of the group would chime in at different parts. I think one line went something like this: "We drink so that-" "WE SLEEP" "And we sleep so that-" "WE DON'T SIN" "And we don't sin-" "SO WE GO TO HEAVEN" "And so to go to heaven-" "WE DRINK MORE" I personally got a kick out of that. I wish I knew all of it.

After we sat and listened to them a bit, everyone started getting up and dancing. Now I must say, at this point in the evening, the waiters had been filling up everyone's wine glasses for about 3 hours now. I myself don't like wine unless it's tinto de verano (which means it's about half filled up with soda), so I just got to enjoy everyone else clearly being intoxicated out of their minds. My 21st birthday is going to be boring to say the least. Not to say that I didn't get up and dance with everyone else. It was a lot of fun, definitely. This is something I will miss about Spain. Among many other things, but I'm saving that for one of my last blog posts.

After the Thanksgiving dinner was over I went out with a group of friends to a bar called Templarios. It was this medieval themed bar, which is SO up my alley. Medieval Studies major + Medieval themed bar = Unimaginable happiness. Of course, I still didn't drink anything there, but I just absorbed the awesome decorations that surrounded me. I hope I can find that place again. I'll just go sit there and allow myself to be amazed.

Pretty sweet right?!! I mean, this bar did not skimp on the decorations. When my friend first told me about it I thought it was going to be some lame effortless attempt at medieval decor, but no, this was legit!

 Now, I had the flash on for all of these photos, so you don't get to really experience the mood of the place. It was dark with green overhead lights. So it was eery too!! There was a downstairs area that was lit with green and red overhead lights, and the downstairs was decorated in a sort of forest theme, with a little fake creek, and all the columns were decorated as trees, with leaves covering the walls. It was SO COOL.

Well, now that Thanksgiving is over, it means that I can officially break out the Christmas music!!! Guess who has been listening to Josh Groban's Christmas songs all morning?! That's right, me. I love his Christmas album. His voice makes me want to cry sometimes. And now I only have 3 weeks and 3 days until I leave Spain. I am definitely ready to be home, but I will miss it here too.

Culture Clash over Economics

Now don't worry, I know the title of this post sounds ominous, but nothing bad occurred in this "culture clash." Not even a debate. This entry is merely going to be my reflection over an interesting exchange that happened between my History of Photography professor and one of my fellow Preshquitos. We were discussing themes for our final photo project, when my classmate presented her idea of doing her project about her fear of being poor. This idea didn't strike me as strange in the least. We all have our fears. Personally I fear death, flying, and Gollum from Lord of the Rings. What has prompted me to post now, a day after the incident, was our professor's response. He immediately responded with,
        "Well that's an irrational fear."
All of us (there were about 6/7 of us in this tutoring session) just sat there in awkward silence. I mean, my fear of Gollum could definitely be called irrational. He's a fictional character for heaven's sake. And my mother has called my fear of flying irrational, although I beg to differ on that point. However, never would I have described the fear of poverty as being irrational. Hard times can come on anyone. He eventually followed that up with, "You'll have a degree from a good university, there's no way you will end up on the streets." Now, I'm guessing he hasn't heard/disregards the common phrase describing liberal arts majors living in a box. However, ignoring all the people we currently know who can't find jobs after graduating, his point isn't completely out there. None of the jobless college graduates that I've heard of are living on the streets. What struck me most was the next thing he said. He said, "What's the unemployment rate in the US? 7%? 8%? Well here it is 30%." We all just sat there kind of stunned. I wonder if he thinks we're all spoiled Americans, complaining about unemployment in our country when Spain is struggling so much more. It was definitely a wake up call to me. Here in our country people are ragging on Obama and talking about how bad our economy is, and people are struggling, I know. But in Spain almost a third of the population is unemployed. More than 3 times the percentage of our country that is unemployed.


     I guess one benefit of spending this semester in Spain is learning the skill of keeping things in perspective. Sometimes I think a lot of us in the US become so focused on our own problems that we forget that other countries have it off worse. Or even that some country's are doing things better than we are. I am guilty of this myself. I didn't even know the basics of Spain's political system, whereas my host family knew all about our election, the situation in the House of Representatives, and many of the details of past elections. They don't know the intricacies of our system, but they still knew way more than I did. That's definitely something I should work to improve when I get back home. Got to try and be more aware.

US Election 2012

Last night I stayed up till close to 7am with a group of us PRESHCO students to watch the presidential election. It was the first election I was eligible to vote in, and I sent in my absentee ballot as soon as I received it in the mail. My beloved home state of Oregon delivered for the democratic candidate, once again. Might as well call her old faithful. I was looking back at Oregon's voting history and what I love is we've been voting Democrat for 30 or so years, and the last time we voted Republican was back when the Republican party was more aligned with the modern day Democratic party.

Even though we were in Spain, and missed out on being in the US for all the celebration, I had a wonderful election party with my Preshquitos. Lots of food and talk and waiting with baited breath for the next projection to appear on CNN. It's kind of been nice being in Spain since we haven't had to deal with the constant barrage of advertisements insulting both candidates. I was on such an adrenaline high throughout the night that the hours seemed to fly by, and sleep remained the furthest thing from my mind. I contributed to the re election of President Barack Obama.

I do have to add that I am impressed with how well informed all the Spaniards are about the political process and current events of the US. My host parents knew the names of both candidates, their political parties, and they understood the current problem we're having in the House of Representatives where the Republicans are shooting down all the changes Obama tries to make. I could not have answered even the most basic question about Spain's political system. Guess I'm perpetuating that stereotype about Americans being more focused on what happens in their own country than anything else....I was ashamed. But even this can't bring me down from my high. I am proud to be a member of a country lead by Barack Obama. All I have to say now is....Clinton 2016 :)

Valencia

All Saint's day (aka November 1st) is a national holiday in Spain, so this weekend was a 4 day weekend for everyone here. To celebrate this, I went to Valencia with two of my friends from the PRESHCO group. I don't know what I was expecting from the city, but overall I enjoyed my time there. It was surprising how quiet everything was. You'd be walking around right at the lunch hour, and there would be very few people on the streets. My Frommer's guide book made a point about Valencia being overshadowed by the other cities in Spain, which I can completely understand. It has a cathedral, but not as grand as all the others. It has an "old city" but not as old as various parts of Cordoba. It was a nice place to relax for a few days, but I can understand why it doesn't even have its own section in the Rick Steve's guidebook.

I have to say, I love big markets. We found one in Valencia, and I think it may have been my favorite part of the trip. Even though they had pig heads and rabbit bodies just sitting in the cases...:( And a guy was killing the eels in front of everyone. People seem to be made of sterner stuff here in Spain. It made me kind of sad. But I loved looking at all the seafood, meat, and vegetables. I don't know why. I guess I enjoy the energy in the atmosphere of a food market.

I've returned to Cordoba now, and so ends probably the only trip I will take during my time here in Spain. I can't honestly say that I'm disappointed about that. Traveling causes enormous amounts of stress for me, and I like being at my home base. Someday I'll get myself to the UK. Just not now it would seem.

Siguiendo adelante

Sorry to everyone for not posting in a very long time! Like I've said before, not much has been happening lately, so I don't feel like I can write a good blog entry. Yesterday I got to skype my grandparents for the first time since coming to Spain, which was really nice. Last weekend the PRESHCO people took us to the beach in Huelva to make up for the fact that they canceled the trip to Morocco that was supposed to happen last weekend. Next weekend I will be going to Valencia with my two guy friends here, so that should be interesting. It probably will be the only time I end up traveling while here in Spain, if I'm being honest with myself. I know I should plan a trip to the UK since I so desperately wanted to study abroad there. However, when I think about it, we don't have that many more weeks left here in Spain. Over half way till I come home for Christmas. I guess I'll just have to make myself go to the UK another time.

Gloomy Sara now. I've really despaired of ever becoming fluent in Spanish. I now accept it as the unattainable dream that it is. I would have to live in Spain for years with no contact to any English speakers, and that is not realistically going to happen. There are times when I wish that I had just been a Classical Civ/Med Ren double major, since now it seems like my Spanish major is worth nothing. I can speak and understand pretty well, but I would be absolutely destroyed if I came into contact with a native speaker. My Spanish is definitely not good enough to be used in any sort of official capacity, such as any career path that I might end up taking. And this makes me sad because the only thing I've ever known for sure is that I want to be fluent in Spanish. I foolishly thought that a semester in Spain would get me there, but that is in no way true. Oh well. I'm so close to getting my major that it isn't really worth it to stop now.

Visit from Mom

I haven't posted for a while since my Mom arrived last Thursday, and we've been doing lots of traveling the past 10 days. Immediately upon her arrival in Spain we headed to Sevilla together. The photo above is of me in the flamenco dress I bought myself. I tried on 4 different ones before deciding to go with the first one I tried on. The decision ended up being between this dress and a a white dress with flowers all over it, no sleeves, and blue ruffles at the bottom. I ended up going with this one because it is more "flamenco" and I just love red and the sleeves. Proof that I, as a very curvy woman, can totally pull of a tight fitting dress :) In Sevilla we saw the palace and the Cathedral, which has a large tower with a spectacular view of the city at the top. Apparently a "tapa" of Columbus is buried in the Cathedral, since his body has been moved around so much. I love that they call it a tapa of Columbus. I think it was something like 30 bones/13% of his body is in the Cathedral. The palace was pretty cool because it is divided into three sections. One third is the Palace of Isabel and Ferdinand, another is Pedro Tercero, and the last is I think for one of the kings Alfonso. Though I'm a little shaky on the details since it has been a while. What's great is that each of the different palaces has a different style to it. Isabel and Ferdinand's third was a bit more plain, whereas Pedro Tercero's had a distinctly Moorish style to it, and Alfonso's had a lot of yellow tile and various tapestries on display.
Plus, Mom and I found this restaurant that served pasta with saffron and shrimp in it. It was incredible. We went back two nights in a row to order the same thing. Mom usually never allows us to do that because she always wants to try new things, however, she made an exception with this place because that pasta was just so amazing.



After Sevilla we moved onto Granada. Both Mom and I felt that Granada was kind of ugly in comparison. The photo is of me and my mom in the Alhambra, in front of the cool lion fountain. The Alhambra is spectacular, of course. The detail work is incredible. The amount of time it must have taken to chisel out the decorations on all the columns and walls. Not a single wall was left bare it seemed like. And lots of fountains and running water. We walked so much, my feet were killing me. At the end of that day we had dinner in a bar where they were playing the Real Madrid vs. Barca game. The bar was almost evenly divided between Madrid and Barca fans, and the game ended up being an exhibition for the stars of the two teams (Ronaldo for Madrid, Messi for Barca) with both the players scoring all the goals for their team, with the game ending in a 2-2 draw.

We then spent 3 nights in my home, Cordoba, where Mom did all the touristy things while I was in class, which was nice. We got back Monday, and my host mother took us that afternoon to a town called Priego, which is this gorgeous, historic little pueblo about an hour outside of Cordoba. The photo is of me, my host mom Araceli, my host sister Mery, and Mery's study abroad student Kasumi from Japan. All the buildings in the town are stark white, and it just was so cute. My host family has told me that of the students they've had that have no background in Spanish, I speak the best Spanish. These kind of things make me happy. Also, while my mom was here, as long as I spoke, nobody asked me if I wanted an English menu or anything. However, as soon as my mom spoke they would start speaking in English. I'm making my way up in the world of speaking Spanish.

Then this weekend we headed off to Madrid, with a day trip to Toledo on Friday. I have to say, Toledo is probably my favorite city in Spain. It is just so medieval, and they are known for their swords. Any city that is known for swords is my kind of place. I got a shield with two swords crossed behind it that I can hang on my wall. I love it. The shield is the shield of Spain. Something to have with me always. I have no pictures of it, but it is awesome.

Since my mom can bring home things in her suitcase, I have gotten 80% of my Christmas shopping done. I'm so stoked about that. The week I have home before Christmas can be spent relaxing instead of rushing around trying to buy everyone's gifts.

Madrid to me, is the city of desserts. And I have successfully hit all of my favorite dessert places here. Crepes two nights in a row, churros con chocolate this morning, and a napolitana this afternoon. Unfortunately, when my mom leaves I will have to go back to my dessert once a week rule. And I should start running more regularly. I'm going to die when I get back on campus and have to start playing squash for hours every day. The first week isn't going to be pretty. Lots of dry heaving on court I'm sure. Mom did drag me to El Prado, the art museum here. There were two paintings of men riding horses that I loved, one of St. George slaying the dragon, and the other of a Duke of Lerma. However, my dislike of art museums has not faded at all since I was 6 going to art museums on our first Europe trip. So many religious paintings. All of Jesus either on the cross or bleeding from the crown of thorns. I wish there was more variety amongst old paintings. But anything is better than the current trend of modern "art" we have nowadays. Ick.

Hopefully I haven't forgotten anything important. Monstrous sized post I know, but I had a lot of stuff happen this past week.

In a Rhythm

Well, I've been in Spain a little over a month now, and I'm finally starting to get into a rhythm. This of course means that I don't post as frequently because nothing new happens to me. I go to class and hang out with my friends. Today I had a Spanish couple ask me for directions to the Mezquita, and I think I was pretty successful. I've had people ask me for help three different times now. I think this last time I may not have sounded my best, because I had to think of the best way to direct them before I could say anything. I really hate it when I sound like I'm just visiting. I've had a few people tell me after speaking with them that I could pass for Spanish, since I don't have much of an accent. Except when I struggle with what I want to say....Grrr.

The photo above is of me in the Plaza de Tendillas. I go there a lot. It's the main meeting point for all my friends when we want to hang together. It's pretty central. Sometimes if I just feel like going for a walk, I'll make a loop that includes the Plaza and the Roman Bridge. Today I went to the only bookstore I've found in Spain. The tragedy was that all the books there were extremely expensive. The cheapest book I found probably had no more than 100 pages and it cost 7.90 euros. Most of the books cost 20 euros or more....And they were all PAPERBACKS too. I think I spent 20 dollars on the last Harry Potter book, but that was in hard cover, and it was Harry Potter. I may still end up buying a book because the program here allows you to use reembolsos on cultural purchases. I just will have to only pick one book, and make sure I pick wisely.

The photo above is of the Plaza at night. Quite something. I love how they light up different parts of the city after dark. Makes it just as beautiful to look at. I took this photo, because for once I actually took the time to really look at the Plaza. I walk there nearly every day, and I just hadn't taken the time to see where I was. It is nice to be surprised with the beauty of your surroundings every now and again.

My mother comes to Spain the day after tomorrow. It will be nice to have her with me for 10 days. We're going to go to Sevilla and Granada this weekend, and then next weekend we're going to be in Toledo and Madrid. I have to show her all the awesome desserts I've found in Spain :)