Shrinking the Expanse

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Ok - so I’m back in the states. Minnesota. 

It’s strange. I missed jet lag. The trip was actually pleasant. It was long, but everything was comfortable. And after jumping right back into driving, getting a phone, and working my life seems to have just gone on.

Which freaks me out. 

I’m having moments where I have to stop and picture the street I lived on this last year and the classes I went to. What threw me off the most were the sandals I left here, still in the mudroom. The hairspray I left, still under my sink, my sunglasses still in the center consul of my car. My life just went on. So did Spain really happen? 

My transition was so seamless. And I kind of wish there were seams, where I can point to where things changed - where the fabric had to be stitched together. But life just goes on.

I’m sorry - I missed posts for Tarifa and Morocco - and Ireland. I think within the next week or so, the best I can do now is post pictures, which I’ll do. Both trips where fabulous. 

So here are my plans for next year - 

Teaching Compositon - Research and Rhetoric at SLU in St. Louis, Missouri. I will also be finishing up my classes there - Romanticism and Young Adult Literature (so excited).

In January I’ll be moving back to Spain to teach the same class on the Madrid campus and to finish my thesis. 

So this is where I am. For now. 

Two weekends ago, my friend Blanca invited me, along with a couple other girls, to go with her to visit her hometown in Spain. Her family lives in Mérida, which is in Extremadura - close to Portugal. 

It ended up being Blanca, my friend Kelly, and I on this trip. We took a bus from Madrid to Mérida, which was about 4 hours. When we arrived we met Blanca’s mom, who is the sweetest. She speaks no English, but we had Blanca to translate when needed. We had a coffee and then walked around a bit and saw the town. It is small and built around Roman ruins. There is a river that runs, separating the old and the new, and an old Roman bridge across it. We crossed this bridge every time we went into town. On this first night we basically just saw the town square and the location of some of the sights. We then returned to Blanca’s house, where her mother had a wonderful dinner of Spanish tortilla made for us. 

The next day we attempted the sights, even though it was a rainy day. We saw plenty the Arab(?) wall, which looked back out over the river.

 We then ducked inside from the rain and had a lunch. (Hey MOM - I ate a tomato-pasty garlic soup and I liked it. I also accidentally ate a tomato today and while i really didn’t like it, I didn’t HATE it. I’m growing up.) We were walking and we ran into the Temple of DIana which was awesome.

We then went to the museum, which was full of ancient Roman stuff. Lots of great mosaics, old jewelry, and a LOT of statues that are missing their heads or other body parts. There was also a basement to this museum that was the structure of an old Roman home that still seemed to be excavating - very cool. 

We caught a lucky break and it wasn’t raining so we went into the old Roman Theater, which is the main site in Mérida. 

It was covered and only had seven pillars sticking out of the ground and then people started digging and found the theater. This was so incredible. 

We then went back and had dinner at an Italian restaurant and went out for the night. 

Sunday we walked up to the aqueducts, which were like the ones in Segovia - but with more character. 

Ooh. Another awesome thing - I saw a stork for the first time. They’ve always been kind of fairy-tale creatures, but they really exist!

It then began to rain on us again so we went back to Blanca’s. Her mom made us another amazing dinner (we were so spoiled with homemade food!). We rented the Proposal and stayed in, which was nice - and it’s a great movie.

Monday Blanca and I got our hair done. After another wonderful lunch, we got on the bus back to Madrid. It was a really amazing weekend. 

Barcelona was insane. 

I truly understand now the lyric - 

I love this crazy tragic, sometimes almost magic, awful beautiful life. 

So I flew to Barcelona on Saturday afternoon with two  of my best girlfriends here, Kelly and Stephanie. When we got to Barcelona we somehow spent more time on transportation to our hostel than we did on the flight from Madrid to Barcelona. We ended up having to take a bus, to a train, which took us to the metro, to a stop that was about a 10 minute walk to the hostel - however the directions were unclear so we were quite lost for awhile and no one seemed to have heard of the street where the beach and the hostel were so it took us much longer.  Needless to say we were a little crabby. It was not a great start to our trip. 

So when we turned the corner towards our hostel, we were right on the coast. The ocean would have been enough to make it all okay, but then we saw a rainbow. It seemed to be a sign that the bad stuff was behind us.

Then I found out my wallet had been stolen out of my purse. After much trying not to freak out and attempting to get ahold of my parents we decided it was time for dinner and a drink. We walked for awhile and had a great slow dinner, with a couple pitchers of sangria. 

The next day we laid low, mostly reading and only venturing out to get lunch. During the evening though, we walked along one of the main streets in Barcelona, then found an Italian place for dinner. That night we spent hanging out in an Irish pub, drinking wine, on a Sunday. It was great. 

The next morning we took the metro (I always appreciate the Madrid metro system so much when I see other cities’ versions of the metro) to the Segrada Familia, an incredible church that was created by Antoni Gaudi (who’s my new obsession by the way). At first, the outside is really imposing and overwhelming, then you get closer and start to see the smaller details. 

Inside it was just gorgeous. Everywhere you looked there was something different or a completely new perspective. The colors were great and the stained glass was awesome. By far the coolest church i’ve ever been into. We took an elevator up and were able to walk around the top, and down to the bottom. Despite the freakiness of how high up we were, the views were amazing, and we were able to actually see some of the details of the tops of the building. 

We continued our Gaudi-trip by walking down to a house he designed. I don’t remember what it was called but I do know it sounded like the “Bayou House”. It was the coolest thing, and I seriously want someone to design a house for me just like it. I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking, because it’s not exactly something I can do justice by describing.

The crown on the banister, which will be my next tattoo. 

Actually, this house was like something straight out of Alice and Wonderland. 

On our last day, Stephanie was having some knee issues, so we decided to take a hop on - hop off tour bus. We saw most of the city this way, although we’d seen most of it walking already. The bus brought us up to a park, which was full of Gaudi (the theme of this trip). It was filled with mosaics and columns. 

What a wonderful place to just be able to go and relax. 

Which was what we needed.

That was mostly our trip - I left off some of the more stressful things because I really did love Barcelona and that’s what i want to remember. 

Although one funny thing, to top off the trip where everything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong. When we were in the airport we missed our flight being called. We assumed it was delayed (we were at a restaurant so close to our gate and figured we would have at least seen them board, but we were looking at the wrong line). We decided to just go get in line, only to find out they were on the final call, so we nearly missed our plane back to Madrid. 

Jen and I went back to Lisbon. This trip was similar to my first trip, but it was still incredible. I’m thoroughly convinced I have a past life connection here because the second the plane landed, the first thought to flit through my mind was - I’m home. 

I just get this incredibly peaceful, happy feeling in Lisbon. I’m gonna have to say that it is my favorite place I’ve visited. 

The difference in this trip (besides the difference in company) was we made a day trip to a mountain town called Sintra. It’s a truly magical place. 

The town hall looked like something out of a Disney movie -

And there were statues everywhere. It is the epitome of a small European town. There were adorable houses and winding side streets you could get lost in.

The main attraction was a castle, which it is rumored Disney used as inspiration. I’m sure this is true, however we were unable to see the entire castle. We ended up hiking up a mountain for about an hour to get there (something we were completely unprepared for). We were hiking through really think and tangled forest.

The farther up we got, the foggier it got. By the time we reached the castle we could barely see the castle - and this thing is huge. 

We only saw bits and pieces, but what we saw was incredible. 

It was like a fairy tale land - but with the fog it resembled more the scary part of the fairy tale. 

This second trip was really amazing. The one thing we did see in Lisbon I hadn’t seen before was the ruins of a church from the big earthquake. That was incredible. 

Then we got back to Madrid and Jen left. Still sad about that, but it made me so incredibly happy she came. Even the smallest connection to home is a big deal. 

And I can’t wait to go back to Portugal…again!

Since Jen still hadn’t made it to Madrid, I had an extra ticket to a Flamenco show. I was able to give the ticket to my friend Caralyn, so with Laney, Kelly and her two visiting friends, I finally managed to see a flamenco show after living here for four months. 

It was okay. 

I don’t really know what I was expecting, but it was different. They used castanets, which was pretty cool. Their outfits were a little loud for my taste, and the dancers weren’t all quite in sync all the time, but generally it was a good show. It was entertaining, but it wasn’t really an astonishing experience. 

After the Flamenco show we all went to a restaurant (which is actually the same restaurant Dad and I came to on his last night here before he left). We ordered paella - a Spanish dish with yellow rice and generally seafood, but for us vegetarians just vegetables. So far this was the best paella I’ve had.  We also put on a spectacular display of our American-ness which even caused Laney to say - And they think the English are bad! We ordered Irish Coffee’s to start, as we were fading a bit, and we also ordered a bottle of wine and a pitcher of sangria before we even looked at the menus (although there was 7 of us, so it really isn’t thaat bad). It was a really great, fun night. 

The next day, Jen finally made it to Madrid. I hadn’t seen her in a year and a half, since she spent the last year teaching in South Korea. So between that and all the anticipation that built up with her flights being delayed, it was way exciting when she finally made it to Spain. Laney and I picked her up at the airport, and brought her back to my apartment. After kebabs, we put Jen down for a nap while Laney and I went in search for New Years outfits (unsuccessfully). We also had fun trying to pick out a good - cheap bottle of champagne in Spanish. We picked up packs of grapes for midnight and head back to get ready for the night - there was also an incident in here where I missed a step walking into the metro and fell on my face. Luckily there were only two people behind me, so it was only slightly embarrassing. 

The grapes for midnight - I’ll explain - 

When the clock hits midnight on New Years Eve, in Spain, you eat 12 grapes - 1 every time the clock chimes. It’s for good luck. Don’t know where it comes from. 

We met up with Kelly and her friends at her apartment, and all went down to Sol where it was absolutely insane. We lost Kelly right away, so it was just the three of us. The streets were unbearably packed, and loud, we missed the chimes. We ate our grapes 10 seconds late.

After I got tackled to the ground by some random person, we got out of there pretty quickly. After walking around for a bit, and failing to meet back up with Kelly, we head back to the area where my apartment is. 

New Years Day was by far a better start to my new year. 

We went out to dinner with my friend Caralyn and her Mom and brother on their last night in Madrid. After we went salsa dancing and just had a blast. 

Afterwards, I finally did the tourism things I’d been neglecting for so long. 

We walked and saw the palace, the Plaza de Oriente, and the coolest place (in my opinion) in madrid - the Temple Debod. It’s an ancient Egyptian temple which is placed on a hill over looking Madrid.

The View at Sunset was breathtaking.

The girls also got me on a  cable car - and despite freaking out about the heights, it was great. And I finally saw the river. 

The day after Christmas my friend Laney came to visit from England. She’s a girl that my friend, Jen, and I met last summer in Budapest. Funnily, I’d only known her that day in Budapest before she came to Madrid. We got on really well and it was great fun while she was here. Jen was supposed to arrive on the 28th, however due to weather in the United States, and after what I’m sure was  a lot of headache, she didn’t come until New Years Eve, so Laney and I did some day trips outside of Madrid. 

First we went to Toledo. We got a late start, taking a bus about 45 minutes out of Madrid, we got into the town in mid afternoon. Toledo is seriously confusing. We really didn’t find much of anything until we stopped trying. We put away our map, and suddenly the sights seemed to just show themselves to us. I think it’s the kind of town where you are supposed to just get lost, and in there lies the beauty. Since it was later in the day, we didn’t fit in much, but we did see great old buildings - a monastery and a church. The best part of this particular trip may have been the ice rink we stumbled across. We didn’t skate, but it was great entertainment watching kids fall down (that makes me sound slightly evil). Toledo was definitely a great place to wander, if only we’d had more time to get lost. 

We headed to Segovia the next day. It, too, was about a 45 minute bus ride into the mountains. I adored Segovia. It’s a quaint town nestled in the mountains. It’s largest sight is the Roman Aqueducts, which are so large they are hard to miss.

The rest of the old part of town contained streets that made it nearly impossible to get lost, and because of my abysmal direction sense this is an ideal for me. All the roads either connected or led us to a recognizable sight. Even when we tried wandering aimlessly, we knew where we were or where we were going. The Cathedral in Segovia was massive, imposing in the corner of the main square. This square was so perfect at night. It was still decorated for Christmas, so the trees were sprinkled with white lights and their “tree” had animated doves. The weather was great, so after dark we sat a bit and people watched while soaking up the great energy in the air. 

Also, Segovia had a spectacular castle, which is enough to win my heart. The views from the castle were stunning. 

The castle had a tower that was 152 slim, winding stairs.

Totally worth it for the view. 

The next day, still waiting for Jen, Laney and I put off seeing the Madrid sights until Jen arrived. So, we decided to go to the zoo. It was such a blast. First, we had to find it. It is in this huge park, Casa de Campo, and once we got out of the metro we were almost instantaneously lost. We were basically wandering in the wilderness, an interesting paradox as we were in the middle of a city. It was almost like being in the muddy woods of Minnesota, except that you could see sky scrapers in the distance. We wandered until we came across what looked like a glass pyramid, and we figured we were close. The entrance was still to be found. We set of along one side of the fence around the pyramid, decided it was the wrong way and turned around. A guy was about to follow us in the way we were going - when we turned around he started to walk with us, asking where the zoo was. We decided he was quite the creep, as when he answered “Everywhere,” to our question, “Where are you from” and then a long, creepy silence after the question, “Okay, where did you start out?” Who doesn’t answer that question? 

He also disappeared immediately after we found the entrance. I’m just glad we didn’t continue wandering in the direction we were going, as it was a more deserted area. 

Anyways, the zoo was so much fun. I really love zoos. There were baby pandas, and a giraffe that kept gyrating his neck backwards, and of course my favorite - the lions on a fixture that looked curiously like Pride Rock. We also were able to see a dolphin show.

I’d never seen one before, so that was way cool. 

When we left the zoo, we followed other people out, and they led us straight to a different metro stop in which the direction the the zoo was very easy and clear. Of course. 

Okay, I should first apologize profusely (mostly to my mother…) for these belated posts. I have four or five coming! These are all so late due to more internet/computer issues, however once I’m caught up to date I swear I will do my best to be better about posting regularly. TRY, being the imperative word in that sentence. 

Christmas was very different for me this year. I have always been with my family for every Christmas, and this year I was completely alone. My roommates had all gone and my friends from SLU had dispersed for the holiday. Luckily, I received my Amazon order a few days into winter break and was quite content with my books (like a true English nerd - if you can’t have humans around you, books are a nearly perfect substitute).

I do have to say that Madrid did a beautiful job with decorating the city for Christmas. In Puerta del Sol there was a giant lit up “tree” and the roads that stemmed from the center were topped with dangling lights. I’m always curious around Christmas time exactly how much money is spent decorating (and how many people could be fed off that money….). Nonetheless, it was enough to capture the holiday spirit. There was also a Christmas Market that they set up in Plaza Mayor. Some booths were nearly blinding with flashing lights and others were draped in the popular figures of Santa or the Three Kings climbing up a hanging ladder. I did purchase a glittery red star that sits on my desk, my own small attempt at decorating for Christmas. 

Even though it didn’t really feel like Christmas, I was able to manufacture some semblance of the Christmas tradition for myself. On Christmas Eve I made myself garlic mashed potatoes, stuffed red peppers, and an apple crisp for my Christmas desert. While I created my dinner, I listed to Garrison Keillor’s stories of Lake Wobegon and my favorite retelling of the birth of Christ. 

The next day was Christmas and I did very little and ate leftovers. It was about two in the morning my time when I Skyped my family. We talked for a bit, and then we decided to attempt my involvement in a family dominoes game through Skype. It actually worked quite well. Mom or Sam set up the dominoes in front of the computer and then I directed them as to which to play. Even though I lost, it was a blast and by far the best part of my Christmas. Technology is really a blessing sometimes. It was almost like being there and great to (almost) be surrounded by my beautiful family again. 

Sorry…I´m going to let you all know that I am not going to blog about Brussels and Rome. Both trips were fabulous, but they were awhile ago. My computer has been diagnosed with a ”corrupted” hard drive and is being fixed. Hopefully I will have it back before Christmas, but I¨m not incredibly hopeful.

Anywhow, the end of the semseter is very close and it still cannot come soon enough. Yesterday was the last day of class. I only have one final, which is next monday. Between now and then I have one paper that I should be proofreading right now, then two more research papers to write and I will be done with my first semester of graduate school. Exciting.

But really, I´m writing not to attempt to explain the play I went to last night. I went with my Renaissance Drama class to a Spanish production of Titus Andronicus…and it was beyond any play I´ve ever seen before. It was less of a play, and more of an experience. There were no seats, everyone was standing and the actors moved through the croud either on circular moving platforms, or tractors. They would hand out food, even cotton candy, which was quite interesting. As a part of the audience I had to be constantly alert, or else risk being hit by a moving platform, a ball one of the actors was whipping through the room, or even the spray of fake blood. If you know Titus Andronicus, you know the play is quite brutal and bloody, and with constantly having to be alert, it was almost frightening at times. I´m including a YouTube clip of the play with the actors we saw, so you might get an idea, but it´s not something that you´d believe unless you were actually there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2lTuEwoE4k

Not something you would see in the US.

Funnily enough, we went out for a drink at Montaditos after the play and after awhile a few of the actors came it. One of those bizarre moments like, you were just hung upside down and and covored in blood…you can´t be a real person…

Anyhow, that was quite the experience.