So my most recent adventure took place last weekend, when I made plans to meet up with two of my good friends from Penn State in London.  Kyle and Simon have been roommates of mine for the past few years, and they are also studying abroad this semester, in Rome.  Simon has  lived in England for the first 15 years of his life, and still has family there, so he knows the country pretty well.  We had been meaning to meet up in Europe at some point this semester, so last weekend when we were all free, London seemed like an obvious choice for a great weekend.  And it was just that, after a little initial confusion.

We were flying out Thursday night and meeting up in the airport, since we would have to take a train to get into the heart of London where our hostel was.  The only problem was that their flight from Rome landed 2 hours before mine was supposed to, we hadn’t exchanged European cell phone numbers beforehand, and they forgot what flight I was supposed to be on.  So after they arrived, they checked for flights arriving from Spain, and picked the wrong one.  After an hour of not finding me after they thought my flight was supposed to arrive, they started worrying.  They paged me in the airport, called people back in the US to try to get a hold of me, and ultimately ended up giving up and going to the hostel.  And all of this took place before my flight was even supposed to get there.  So after I did arrive, I didn’t find them (obviously) and after almost an hour of looking I gave up and went to the hostel as well.  Luckily we all ended up in the same place, only one hour after we were supposed to meet up.  So it really wasn’t so bad, just some poor planning and miscommunication, and a few unnecessarily worried people back in the States.

After a sub-par night’s sleep (the beds were just awful) we started our first day in London with a proper English breakfast – 2 big strips of bacon, 2 sausages, 2 eggs, baked beans, toast, roasted tomato, and tea.  This was a nice break from all of the light food I’ve been eating in Spain, finally something with fat, flavor, and substance.  We then tried to hit all of the big tourist spots in London – the Parliament building and Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, and the Tower of London.  Unfortunately we couldn’t get into parliament/Big Ben or Buckingham Palace, and Westminster Abbey and the London Eye weren’t worth the admission price.  We missed the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, but thankfully we would be able to see that the next day. 

Despite all of that, the Tower of London was amazing.  We did pay to get in, mostly based on the fact that it was where the royal jewels were housed.  That was where we went first.  Unfortunately we couldn’t take pictures, but they were simply amazing…ridiculous, ostentatious, gleaming, just crazy.  I could never have imagined a collection of jewels so big, so much gold and silver…it must literally be of incalculable value. The other neat part of the Tower of London was that it was the heart of London’s defenses for hundreds of years, and is currently home to a museum of all of the old weaponry.  We got to see everything from canons and suits of armor up through modern assault rifles.  This was also the site where they would bring in traitors and enemies, try them, and usually execute them (and for this it is rumored to be haunted).  All in all, it was really cool to see, and thankfully I was able to take pictures of it.

Location: London, England

Hi everyone!

For those of you who don’t know, I’ve been starting to following European soccer more and more over the past few years, with FC Barcelona (Spain – La Liga) and Arsenal (England – Premier League) being my two favorite teams.  Obviously being in Spain these past couple months has influenced things a bit and FC Barcelona is now the clear favorite.  I had been talking with other people in my program for a while about seeing a Barcelona soccer game, and last weekend we finally made it happen – well at least one other guy and I went.  We booked train tickets and a cheap hotel room, bought jerseys, and were ready to go.

I have already been to Barcelona before, and seen most of the sights there, but the guy who came with me hadn’t.  As we were only going for one night, we had limited time.  I showed him to Parc G�ell and La Sagrada Familia, the famous park and cathedral designed by Antoni Gaudi.  The park hadn’t changed much since the last time I saw it, but there was a fire-twirler performing that was pretty cool.  As the cathedral has been under construction since it began (and still isn’t done), there was a lot more done that was neat to see.

Location: Alicante, Spain

Ok well sorry for the delay in the end of the story, but here goes:

Our last day of walking was the shortest, as we had intentionally covered most of the distance beforehand so we could arrive in Santiago fairly early that day.  We all stayed together walking as a group, meaning the pace was somewhat slower than what I had been used to (I’m a strangely fast walker).  Just before we got to Santiago (about a mile outside the city) we arrived at the albergue we would be spending the night at – where the autobus was waiting with our extra bag we had packed for after completing the Camino (we would be spending a day and a half in Santiago, so this way we could have some nicer stuff to get cleaned up and be more comfortable).  We decided to keep on walking and ignore all of that until we had gotten to the cathedral and officially completed the pilgrimage as true pilgrims (walking, dirty/smelly, with our backpacks, and tired).  That was a valiant thought, but we were deceivingly far away from our destination – we could see the city from the albergue so we figured it wasn’t that far away…

…wrong! The cathedral was actually on the complete other side of town, and Santiago is actually a very big town (we walked at least 2-3 km through the city itself), so by the time we finished we were kind of regretting our decision.  Walking through Santiago was really cool – the Camino route was an interesting mix of old Camino history and modern Santiago city stuff.  We walked past pilgrim protection statues, old churches, and Camino markers, and Burger Kings, office buildings, and traffic jams.  At the end when we finally got close to the cathedral, our guide had us get in a line, look down at the ground, and follow him into the main square where the main entrance to the cathedral and “kilometer 0” were located, and then at the same time we all looked up at the cathedral for the first time.

Location: Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Hello again!

As I’ve mentioned in my past couple of entries, I spent my fall break doing a historic Christian pilgrimage called “El Camino de Santiago” (the way of Saint James).  Officially it is an 800km route starting on the French side of the Pyrenees Mountains and ending in Santiago de la Compostela in northwest Spain.  As the story goes, Saint James was beheaded, and his followers collected his remains and sent them off in a boat somewhere in the eastern Mediterranean.  The boat, under its own power and divine guidance, made its way out of the Mediterranean and around Spain, landing on Spain’s northwest coast.  After that Saint James’ remains were lost, until about a thousand years ago when they were supposedly found in a town called Compostela.  After that, a cathedral was built, the pilgrimage started, and the city’s name changed to Santiago de la Compostela.  As it stands today, that cathedral is the second most important church in the world and the pilgrimage is one of the 3 important ones for Christians (the other two are to Jerusalem and the Vatican).    

While its roots lie in Christian history and tradition, it has evolved into something much bigger than that – it is a cultural, personal, spiritual, challenging/rewarding, and above all fun experience.  Thousands of people a year from all over the world walk El Camino de Santiago for religious and other reasons, each person getting something different out of the experience.  While the official route is 800km, you can start at any number of different places to make the journey shorter or longer, with the shortest distance being 100km to officially complete the pilgrimage and receive “la Compostela,”an official church document recognizing your accomplishment. 

I did my Camino with a small group of students from my program and a guide, starting from a town called Sarria.  As we only had a a little over a week off from classes, we did a relatively short Camino of ~110 kilometers (~70 miles).  We walked that distance in 5 days, spending 2 days in Santiago after finishing and one day on each end of the trip for traveling.  Our entire hike took place in the most northwest region of Spain called Galicia, which has a very strong Celtic influence and is a completely different environment than Alicante.  Alicante is very dry, almost desert-like, and is a beach/port city.  Galicia reminded me a lot of Pennsylvania actually, with a lot of forests, farms, some hills and mountains, and streams.  The cultures are also very distinct – in Galicia they even speak a different version of Spanish, Gallego. 

After all of that setup, it’s time to get to my actual experience on the Camino.  Looking back, I can honestly say it was one of the best weeks of my life.  I packed up my backpack with the bare essentials to survive for a week, and spent those 7 days walking with our guide, Alfonso (who is pretty much incredible – he knows just about everything, is athletic, and is just a great guy), and 9 other students, who I got to know a lot better.  Everyone got along well, so if I wanted to walk alone and think, I could; and if I wanted company, I had good friends to hang out with. 

The days hiking pretty much went like this:
1. Wake up at 7am, breakfast at 7.30, walking around 8.
2. Walk 20-25km from 8 until around 2pm.
3. Arrive at “albergue” (basically hostels for pilgrims – they had big bedrooms full of bunk-beds and public bathrooms and kitchens), drop off our backpacks (always felt amazing), and go eat.
4. LUNCH! All along the route are small towns and restaurants/cafes/bars that had “El Menu del Peregrino” (pilgrim menu), consisting of two big, different plates of food, dessert, bread, and a drink for 9€ (actually a really good price for the quality/quantity of food we were getting).
5. Shower and relaxing, usually spent relaxing, reflecting/writing in journals, napping, listening to music, or playing cards.
6. Cultural visit to local church or monument around 8, and then dinner at 9 – similar menu as lunch.
7.  Bed between 10 and 11 at the very latest, as the albergues were public and you would upset other pilgrims if you were noisy getting into bed late. 

The 5 days I spent walking through the beautiful Galician countryside were incredible.  Before going on the Camino I was fairly stressed and kinda bummed out, but I was definitely recharged afterwards.  Thankfully I didn’t have any blister/injury problems along the way, but other people in my group did and I felt really bad for them.  We had lots of interesting little things happen along the way, like getting into an argument with an albergue boss because we didn’t all have our passports, angering an Italian man by turning on the lights at 7.15am (they’re supposed to get turned on at 7), eating octupus at a famous octopus restaurant, meeting people from the around the world, and celebrating everyone (at the albergue)’s last night before reaching Santiago with music, song, and a special alcohol called “quemada” made by mixing very strong alcohol with bits of fruit and burning it before drinking.

Here are some assorted pictures from the walking part of the Camino (sorry there’s been so much text and no pictures thus far):

Location: Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Hey everyone,

So I just got back from my weeklong adventure on the Camino de Santiago Saturday morning, but had to spend the weekend resting and catching up on homework.  Now it’s time to catch up on blogging.

A couple weeks ago, my study abroad program made its first big organized trip – spending a weekend in Seville.  It’s a pretty historic city in south-central Spain that has seen a lot of conflict between the Moors and Christians, and has a very unique culture because of that.  All 30 of us from my program went, along with about 5 of our professors and advisors.  It was a lovely 8 or so autobus ride from Alicante to Seville, and we had to stop every 2-3 hours (by law?) for the bus driver to rest (and also for us to go to the bathroom).  Once we finally got there we checked into the hotel and had a few hours to explore the city.  A few guys and I went to a nearby cafe to grab some beers/coffee before heading off to explore.  After walking for 30 minutes or so we had no idea where we were, and spent the next couple hours figuring out how to get back to the hotel (yes we were too stubborn to ask for help until the end, and even then we misread the map and were still lost). 

With that fun out of the way, we later met up with the group to see a flamenco show and get dinner.  While walking there we went past a really cool plaza “Plaza Mayor” // “Old Plaza” which had very much modern architecture (the name comes from the fact that in the center are ruins of the old city), and we also got our first glimpse of the impressive cathedral we would be touring the next day.

Location: Seville, Spain

Hello again everyone,

So it’s been a while since I last posted…life’s thrown me a few curveballs.  After my first two weeks in Spain I had to go back to the States for two weeks for a family tragedy (quick shout-out to all my friends and family – I love you all).  Fortunately I was able to go back to Spain (despite some serious flight issues) without missing too much of my classes.  Here’s what’s been going on since my return…

So I started my four classes for the semester – Advanced Spanish Grammar (fun, right?…but useful I guess), Spanish Popular Culture (really interesting – explains Spanish daily life), Spanish Art History (pretty dry, like it sounds, but I had to take an art class), and Spanish Gastronomy and Wine Industry (yes, it is the best class ever).  I wasn’t actually behind hardly at all, as the first week or two of classes were pretty slow.  In my art history class we visited a local art/anthropology/history museum called “El MARQ” – by far the most interesting thing we’ve done in that class.  In my gastronomy class we visited two local wineries and had a good time learning about and sampling many different wines – it was so great. 

Last weekend my whole program took a trip to Seville, but I’ll get to that in the next entry.  For now, I’ve gotta finish getting ready for my fall break trip – El Camino de Santiago – a historic pilgrimage in northwest Spain.  I’ll be backpacking for a week so don’t expect to hear from me again until next weekend…

�Hasta luego!

Location: Alicante, Spain

Today marks my 7th day since arriving in Alicante, Spain, but really, it feels a lot longer than that.  I have been doing so much this past week, I can barely believe it.  Well, on Monday my first class started – the intensive Spanish review.  It’s 4 hours a day, 5 days a week – at least there’s a half hour break after the first two hours for a coffee break at the local cafe.  Class is a lot of work, but I really like my professor and we have a lot of interactive activities to make it more fun.  During our first week, we already had an essay and exam, and we have another of each next week.  I guess that’s how they justify a 3-credit class lasting only 2 weeks.  The university is actually about 15 minutes north of Alicante, and I take a bus to get to and from classes.  The first few days it was really hard to remember how to get around town and find the bus stops (I’ll admit I did get lost and wander around a few times).  I got a tour from my host family the first day I was there, but I can’t remember something until I do it for myself.  Not to worry, though, I’ve got it down pat now.

But enough about class…that’s not the fun part…now about everything else.  My host family is awesome – seriously awesome.  My padres make me great meals for lunch and dinner (breakfast is practically nonexistant here).  So far I’ve tried all sorts of stuff I never would’ve touched back in the States – but I promised I would come here with an open mind and try everything before refusing, and it ended up being a pretty solid decision.  So far the things I’ve eaten that I never did before are: calamari, snails, mushrooms, olives (but I still don’t like olives, though I did give them a second chance), various kinds of fish, and more I can’t even remember.  Here’s a picture of my dinner last night:

Some of my favorite foods so far have been tapas (small Spanish dishes of bite-size things, you eat 5-6 different courses) like chorizo (Spanish sausage), papas bravas (potato chips in a spicy salsa), and calamari; paella de marisco (traditional Spanish rice dish with seafood and a delicious sauce); sangria; and ensalada espa�ola del verano (kind of a Spanish potato salad…with tomatoes, peppers, onions, cucumbers, vinegar, oil, and spices).  I’ve asked my madre to teach me some traditional Spanish dishes, and I’m going to teach them some of the stuff I cook at home.  So yeah, the food here is great, and I’m definitely going to get fat if I don’t start exercising (I was going to run today but it literally thunderstormed all day).  But back to my family.  My host-parents have 3 kids, 2 daughters who already moved out and have families of their own, and 1 son who still lives at home.  Both daughters are hosting students in my program as well, so we all hang out a lot together – we’re a pretty big family, ~20 people!  The son, my older brother, is a pretty cool guy.  He’s studying to be a gym teacher, and it pretty fit, so I’m going to try and work out with him throughout the semester.  We went to a bar earlier this week and watched the Barcelona game (they beat Villareal 5-0)…he’s the biggest Barca fan I’ve ever seen.  I think we’re going to make a habit out of this.  We also went running to the castle that sits on top of a small mountain in the middle of the city.  It was probably only a 3 or 4 mile run, but climbing all the stairs to the top of the castle was tough.  I’ll come back to the topic of the castle later, for now I want to talk about my family more.  The four of us live together in a fairly small apartment (for American standards), but I really like it.  My only complaint is that there isn’t air conditioning…there’s a small AC unit for the living room in the afternoon but for the rest of the day it’s all fans and open windows to cool off, and the weather has been mid 90’s with high humidity every day so far.  It’s been kind of hard to sleep this week – I’m still adjusting to the climate and my body doesn’t want to fall asleep while it’s sweating.  But supposedly it’s supposed to start cooling off a little as the days go on so I’m sure it’ll get better.  Here’s a picture of my room:

One thing that’s been really awesome is la siesta…when I come home after class and eat lunch, it’s normal for everyone to relax and take a nap between 3-5 in the afternoon.  This is a custom could get used to in the US.  In general, everyone in Spain is a lot more relaxed, more friendly, and generally happier than at home…maybe we should take a lesson?  Anyways, my family has been hosting foreign students for close to 13 years, and they’ve stayed close to most of the students.  It’s nice to know they really care and that I’m making life-long friends with a great family this semester.

So now, back to the castle, officially called El Castillo Santa Barbara (FYI…I really love castles, so I was so pumped to find out there was a castle in the middle of Alicante).  After I ran there, we took an official tour the next day.  It was built my the Moors back in the 9th century, and construction continued through the 14th century.  It sits on a mountain overlooking the city and port, and was very important for defending the city in ancient times.  Here are some pictures of the castle:

Location: Alicante, Spain

Where do I begin!?  These last few days have been an absolute whirlwind…everything went well with my flights getting to Alicante, with one exception – the airline from Madrid to Alicante (Vueling) charged me 110-euros ($160) to check my second bag, which was only a small suitcase – ridiculous!  Anyways, so I arrived in Alicante at 1pm local time on Friday, and the jet lag was starting to set in.  While meeting with everyone from the program and getting some introductory info, I was really fighting to stay awake.  I managed to stay up until ten o’clock or so when dinner was ending.  All in all, it was an awesome day – I met lots of cool people and we had some delicious tapas for dinner. 

Over the next two days, I got used to the local time, ate a ton of delicious food (trying a lot of stuff I never had before – calamari, rabbit, all sorts of stuff), made some great friends, and went to my first European club.  But the best part came tonight when I got picked up by my host family and moved out of the dorms.  They seem like an amazing family.  My madre has three children – two daughters, who moved out and have families of their own, and a son (25) who still lives at home.  He’s going to be an awesome older brother for me this whole trip.  For our first night together, we met up with her daughters (who are also hosting American students) and had a big dinner at a teter�a – a really cool restaurant where they serve sandwiches and pizza but also have tons of board games for you to play while you’re there.  After dinner we went back to mi casa (which is a nice apartment in the middle of Alicante) and watched TV.  I wish I had more pictures, but so far I’ve forgotten to take my camera with me anywhere, so this one of my family is all I have.

Location: Alicante, Spain