Tag Archives: international

Home again

I should really be cleaning my room right now.  Both of my suitcases, my carry-on, and my backpack are sitting wide open on my bedroom floor, with clothes spilling out of their mouths.  This, paired with the state of disarray in which I apparently left my room in January (no memory of this), leave very little open floor space, stress me out when I look at my room,  and might be a fire hazard.  But every time I go to put things away, I end up sitting, staring, and thinking for a while about my time in Seville.

This, sadly, will be my last official GeoBlog post.  I returned home on Saturday, which was possibly the longest day of my life (though my trip to Seville, which lasted over 24 hours because of a long delay in Lisbon, has the record).  I imagine everyone goes through this when traveling “backwards” through time zones.  The day just did not end!  The sun stayed in the same spot for a long portion of the day, and by the time my mom and I reached home, I was absolutely spent.  It probably didn’t help that I had stayed up until 2 the previous night packing, and that I had had a trying last few days saying goodbye to my friends, teachers, and host parents.

At the end of my last post, I had mentioned how hard I thought goodbyes would be at the end of this semester.  And they were not only difficult, but also strange.  How do you say goodbye to someone or something without knowing when you are going to see them again?  Or if you will ever see them again?  It feels like a normal goodbye– like you are parting ways just until the next day.  Except that a part of your brain, which is tasked with having some idea of the future and of conceptualizing time (however vaguely and ineptly), forces you to try to bridge the temporal distance between your present goodbye and your next encounter.  But you can’t, because the question of when or whether you will meet again is marred with uncertainty.

I remember boarding the plane to Lisbon (with a connecting flight to Seville) in early January, amidst snow drifts and anxiety.  It was one of the scariest moments of my life.  “There is no getting out of this now,” I remember thinking.  Bad thought to think.  But I had no idea what would be in store during the close to 5 months on the other side of the Atlantic.  I spent those 5 months meeting some amazing people and coming to know some amazing things.  And now that I have taken the time to know these people and things and have come to love them all, I’ve left them without knowing when we will meet again.

I struggle at the moment with the distance between myself and these people and things, but also with the distance between myself and my present surroundings.  I have heard that this is something that study abroad students face when they come home: they feel frustrated because the people around them have not had the same experiences they have just had, and they feel misunderstood.  That is how I feel right now, though I am elated to see my friends and family for the first time since Christmas.  But I am frustrated that I can’t make people see what I have gone through, and all I have learned about myself and the world.  It’s ironic, because during these past 5 months I frequently felt like I couldn’t convey thoughts or feelings to others; I didn’t have the vocabulary in Spanish to do so.  The irony is, now that I have returned home and have at my disposal a language in which I am well-versed, I still can’t express what I feel.

Though I am a little down because the excitement of this adventure has finally begun to dissipate– out of habit, I still check my phone often, wanting to see what the day has in store– I can’t help but have anything but gratitude towards the people who made my experience so incredible and the city that became like a home.  So I want to say it once, with sincerity and love and a few tears: thank you.  I hope we’ll meet again soon.

me holding the Seville flag next to the river


Location: Seville, Spain

A Very Long Update

I’m not sure how many more of these I’ll write–I’m scheduled to fly out of Seville two weeks from tomorrow.  I feel as though I haven’t posted enough during this semester, and yet when I look back, my posts are long and filled with detail.  I’m surprised at how little time I have had to write, especially since I have wanted to produce quality posts.  There was always something exciting going on, and I would always say to myself, “I’ll write after it’s over.”  But I kept falling behind, and the more I did, the more I had to write.  The task grew bigger every week and so my time to fill in all of the additional details shrunk. That said, here are some updates on the things that have happened since my last post!

Trip to the UK

What a cool week.  It was only 5 days in actuality, but including my travel days I was gone for almost the entire week.  I flew into London to meet my friend Kim from Penn State.  I explored London for a day and a half–just walking around the city, seeing some of the main sites (Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey), eating ice cream on the Thames.  It was cloudy and cool there, which I expected.  But I’m glad I got to see it.

Trafalgar Square

A bustling Trafalgar Square.

At the end of the weekend, I took a train from London up to Stirling, in Scotland, to meet a friend from my Seville program.  We took a 12-hour tour of the Scottish highlands, which was amazing and beautiful and most of which was spent driving and looking out the window at the pretty landscapes.  Our tour was guided by a wonderful driver, who had a microphone attached to his head and who would talk while driving for all of the 12 hours about the names of all of the sites.  It was, however, the coldest weather I had seen since leaving the U.S. (there was snow!!!! I may or may not have mentioned at the beginning of this blog that my goal this semester was to escape the snow.  But, the views were worth it in the end).

me, at Loch Ness during the highlands tour

The highlands tour included a stop at Loch Ness!

Finally, I ended up in Edinburgh for a night to see one of my best friends from high school who is studying there (hi, Jes!!).  While I was only there for a total of about 18 hours, in that amount of time I got a view of the cityline, tried an ice-cream float, and saw a little bit of what Scottish nightlife is about (hint: cold if you go in March.  But a lot of fun).

Semana Santa

In Spanish, Semana Santa translates to “Holy Week,” and is celebrated in a big way in the days leading up to Easter.  Due to the fact that I was in the UK, I missed the beginning of it, but I purposely planned my trip like that because my host parents told me that the end of the week was best anyway.  I arrived back in Seville on Wednesday night, and some of the more important pasos–the “floats” with representations of Christ and Mary (on separate floats, and usually one of each per church) began to “salir”– to leave their home churches and proceed to the city’s old, enormous catedral.  This is what Semana Santa in Seville is all about: men from each church position themselves beneath these heavy pasos and carry them on their shoulders from their home church to the catedral and back.  They literally shuffle the entire distance, and depending on how far the church is from the catedral, it can take half a day–12 hours.  The men switch off so they can take breaks, but it is an incredibly challenging (and rewarding) job.  Additionally: these men pay to carry the pasos, because it is considered a privilege to do so.  

 

an image of a Seville street during Semana Santa

Though I didn’t take this picture (credit: apartclick.com), it gives you a better idea of the enormity of the celebration and the amount of people who pack the streets to see the pasos.

The Thursday after I got home from the UK, my host mom sat me down for dinner and said we were going to watch the church of La Macarena–another very important and old place in Seville–begin its procession.  Well, they started late, and as it was getting on 12:30, 1 AM, I was wondering if we were still looking for this to start or if it had already happened.  I debated asking my host mom if I could go to bed, since she and I would be getting up at 4:45 the next morning to get a good spot to watch the pasos.  Finally, I said (as politely as I could), “Just wondering, are we still waiting to watch this paso leave the church?  I’m a little tired and was hoping to get a few hours of sleep before we leave tomorrow.”  For some reason the lights in the room were off but I could tell she was slightly annoyed because she didn’t respond right away.  Oh my gosh, I have offended her, I thought to myself.  And we have to spend the entire morning together tomorrow.  She told me we were still waiting for this paso to leave the church, but since it was late, I could go to bed if I wanted.  I apologized and waited a few awkward minutes before leaving the room.  The next morning, however, we were both so tired that we had forgotten about whatever awkwardness there was the night before and rushed into the center of town to see the processions.  We ended up spending a really nice 8 hours together that morning, with a churro/coffee break somewhere in-between.  I have no idea what time that happened, but I do know that we left home at 5AM and came back around 1:30 in the afternoon.  You bet I slept well the next night.

Travel break

The weeks in-between Semana Santa and the next holiday week, Feria, were spent in Sevilla.  I was so relieved to not be traveling for a while, because after that week of returning from the UK and watching all the Semana Santa activity, I was wiped out.

…then back at it in Rome

The weekend before Feria, I went to Rome for a few days.  It was fantastic!  I had been there once before, when my family went to Italy, but had actually not spent too much time there since we were mostly traveling around Tuscany and did not stay in the city for more than a few nights.  Notably, the first night I was there I ate an entire pizza by myself.  I’m pretty proud that I did that.  This time, again, I only spent a few days in Rome, but I didn’t make an agenda.  I just walked around and took streets not knowing where I was going.  My friend from my Seville program joined me on Saturday (I got there on Friday) and we saw more things we wanted to see and ate things that we wanted to eat (pasta and gelato).  Two awesome things that happened on this trip: a) we climbed to the top of St. Peter’s basilica and I had a really breathtaking moment when I looked down at the church with music playing and b) also at St. Peter’s basilica, it started to rain while we were outside in the square but the rain was glittering in the sunset and a rainbow formed.  It was a cool moment.  

a rainbow down the street from St. Peter's basilica in Rome

I feel so lucky to have seen this happen.

Feria

The second of the holiday weeks, called Feria, originally began in the mid-1800s as a gathering for farmers to trade animals and other agricultural things (technical term).  After a few years, the casetas–the little temporary houses set up for Feria where traders could do business–became really popular not for the animals and other agricultural things but for the drinking and eating and merriment.  Now, over 150 years later, the only animals present at Feria are the horses that drag along the carriages.  I spent a lot of time at Feria, as I wasn’t traveling any more that week; I probably spent between 20 and 25 hours there, over the course of the week.  There really isn’t too much to say about it other than that it is a delightful mix of dancing, drinking (rebujito–a mixture of 7-Up and a wine called manzanilla), eating, and more dancing.

a view of the street during Feria

A view of the street during Feria

the "portada," or entrance gate, to Feria

The “portada,” or entrance gate, to Feria. This is a temporary structure and a new one is designed each year.

Paris, France

The weekend after Feria, I took a spontaneous jaunt to Paris with my friend from Scotland.  It was so great, but there was truly an endless amount of things to see.  We spent two and a half fairly busy days making our way around Paris in the rain, seeing of course the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre but also walking along the river, visiting a section of town called Montmarte (making a stop at the Sacre Quor, which gives you a great view of Paris) and sampling crepes.  While it was rainy and we were exhausted, I’m so glad I was able to visit.  

the Eiffel Tower in front of a cloudy sky

This photo was skillfully “auto-awesomed” by Google. 

This post is a little shorter than the others, but is also chock-full of my activities, which included so many other moments of laughter and coffee-driven craziness.  I wish I could recount them all.  Two quick funny and sad stories to part.  First, the funny one.  About a week ago I was watching a Spanish celebrity-pranking show (like Punk’d, but better).  There was a really funny moment when one of the celebrities ended up having to unexpectedly host a funeral, and the family kept making her do increasingly weird things, like watch a strangely upbeat polka band perform and taking a picture with the casket (“I don’t know if I should clap,” she said after the band stopped playing.  Then in regards to the picture: “I don’t know if I should smile.  I have never taken a picture with a casket before”).  My host mom and I were laughing so hard that we could not breathe.  We both had tears coming out of our eyes  Oh man.  I still laugh thinking about it.

Now, the other story.  The night before I left for Paris, I got back late and was very tired, especially since I needed to wake up the next morning at 3:45 to catch a bus to the airport.  When I got in, my host parents were still up.  I had just been to see a flamenco show, and they wanted to hear about it.  “Come on!  Come in!  Tell us about it!”  No, I said, I’m very tired and I need to get up early tomorrow.  But they made me come in anyway.  I told them a little about the show and then all of a sudden my host dad started saying, “Why do you have to leave so soon?  Can’t you stay here a little longer?”  Again, I said no, my date was already set, it costs a lot of money to change it.  I could feel the tears welling up.  He kept pushing me and asking why I couldn’t stay, and as I tried to explain that I wanted to, the tears started flowing.  “Oh no,” I said out loud, and laughed through my tears as they handed me a tissue.  “Look, she’s crying!” they said, also laughing.  “All of the students cry when they leave.  We cry with them.”

Well, now, why did they have to go and tell me that?  Goodbyes will be so hard this time around.


Location: Paris, France

The abroad “horario diario”

As I began this post, I was 30,000 feet in the air, somewhere between Zurich and Madrid (EDIT: Looking back, I realized that I was on this flight during the time that the Germanwings flight crashed.  Scary!).  I was on my way back to Seville after having spent the weekend with my dad in Hamburg, Germany, where he was visiting for work.  Lucky for me I got to see him on my birthday (which was the day I started this post!) and was able to celebrate by eating lots of meat (mostly sausage) and drinking a fair amount of German beer.  This past weekend, I headed into London to visit a friend and to see the city a bit.  Then I went up to Scotland to see another friend, and I stayed there through Wednesday.  Though I will admit that I skipped classes to see my dad in Germany, I won’t have to miss this week because we are celebrating “Semana Santa,” or Holy Week, in Seville.  I came back yesterday in order to see the processions, or “pasos,” that make Seville so famous for its pre-Easter celebrations.  This will include my host mom and I getting up at 5:00 AM tomorrow in order to go into the center and see the holiest (?) of all of the pasos, La Madrugada (“the dawn”), which begins its march in the wee hours of Viernes Santo–Good Friday.

sausage in mustard at Dom in Hamburg, Germany

One of the two official beer-and-meat 21st birthday meals.

But I’ll save my Semana Santa and UK experiences for the next post (or the one after that).  Today, because I am realizing how little time I’ll spend in Seville over the next two weeks, I want to tell you about my life in the city where I am studying and give you a taste of the day-to-day.  I’ve been keeping a running list of some of the things I think you’ll find most interesting in my handy dandy notebook (credit: Blue’s Clues) which is sitting beside my computer.  Note: I include here a significant number of tangents about European life/things that made me laugh/other miscellaneous and not directly related details.  But, as always, I hope you enjoy regardless.

NOTE: I apologize in advance for the lack of pictures in this post.  For some reason, the photo uploader on sites.psu isn’t working too quickly tonight.

Daily/Weekly Routine

This seems like a good place to start!  Thankfully our program does not offer any classes that begin before 9AM, and even more thankfully I was lucky enough to have all of my classes start at 10:30.  I wake up around 8:15 so I can shower and eat before I leave at 9:30.  My host mom is such a sweetheart and always has my breakfast materials (which I will tell you about in the next section) laid out for me at my spot on the table.  This “spot” is arbitrary and subject to random changes, as I learned quickly over the first few weeks of my stay.  During breakfast and dinner, I sit at one of the heads of the rectangular table.  But during lunch, I sit at one of the long edges next to my host mom, who may or may not join me for breakfast or dinner.  It depends on the day.  Lunch, however, we always eat together, and when my host dad knocks on my door and asks me if I want to help him “poner la mesa” (set the table), I know it’s almost time to eat.  Again, food info is coming in the next section.

I walk to a nearby bus stop with some friends from my program who also have 10:30 classes.  Originally, our orientation guide introduced us to the Metro–the equivalent of a subway–to get to the university, but we discovered that the bus station is closer to our apartments and also costs less per ride.  So we bus ourselves into Universidad Pablo de Olavide each day.  I am taking just four classes this semester: Spanish literature, Spanish language, global economics, and intercultural communications.  For the most part, these classes are okay.  The Spanish teaching style is difficult to adjust to, particularly because:

  1. Several of the professors, who are native Spanish speakers but teach courses in English, tend to have trouble expressing themselves in their second language.  This makes discussion, as well as getting our questions answered, difficult.
  2. It often seems like professors are trying to “cater” to the American, discussion-based class style, but have difficulty maintaining these discussions because they have not practiced enough (or so it seems to us) and also perhaps because they don’t understand everything we are saying.

All in all I am not thrilled with my classes here.  This could also be partly due to the fact that I have found my niche in the English program at Penn State and am thriving under the guidance of our wonderful department.  But, if nothing else, it has been nice to take a break from the sometimes rigorous book-reading and paper-writing.  I’ll have my fill of that over the summer and next year.

I have class until 2 or 3 in the afternoon, at which time I come home for lunch.  For those who don’t know, Spanish people tend to eat very late (it sometimes borders on 3:30 for my host family), and lunch usually lasts a while.  I am typically eating and talking with my family for one to two hours during lunchtime.  I really enjoy everything about the meal, though it can be exhausting to keep up with the conversation and to pay attention to the television (which is on during all of our meals).  For this reason, I take a little “descanso” or “siesta” (rest/nap) after lunch.  I don’t usually sleep, but I like to relax in a sunny spot in my room for an hour or so.

At this point, my day can take one of many turns.  Sometimes, I’ll take a run with a friend to Parque Maria Luisa, which is situated next to La Plaza de Espana (if you Google “Sevilla,” the Plaza de Espana will be one of the first images to show up).  Some nights I’ll meet up with my “intercambio”–a language exchange partner who wants to practice English just like I want to practice Spanish.  We go, for example, to get tapas and a drink, or walk around, and take turns speaking each language.  Recently, she won us movie ticket vouchers!  So we’ll be doing that sometime soon.

Once a week, I volunteer at a “colegio,” which in this case is a private, religious primary school which educates kids between the ages of 3 and 14.  I help out with a group of 7-8 year olds, which has been really fun so far.  To be honest I feel like I don’t do too much while I am there besides laugh at the funny things the kids do and every once in a while I help out with a little activity.  Unfortunately I have missed the last two weeks, the first because I got drenched on my way there during a chaparron (a downpour) and this past week because I was in Germany visiting my dad.  And next week the kids don’t have school because it is Semana Santa!  So it will be a while before I visit the colegio again.

The afternoons are also good for heading to a cafe to do some homework or for taking a walk to the center of Seville.  Otherwise, it can be nice to stay in for the night, especially after traveling over the weekends.  I will usually finish up homework, write this blog, or e-mail friends and family before dinner.  Between 9PM and 10PM, I wait for my host mom’s knock on my door: “Ana. Cena.”  Anna, dinner!  I head into the family room to sit with my host parents for dinner and usually end up staying for an hour to an hour and a half.  Then I go to bed!

Food

I may have already posted about food before, but that was pretty early on and Anna from 2 months ago had no idea that she would like as many Spanish foods as she does now.  Of course, I liked breakfast from the start.  I usually have two pieces of toast and put on top of them whatever my host mom sets out for me.  At first, it was butter and jelly.  I didn’t realize that people put butter and jelly on the same slice, so I would cover one piece with butter and one with jelly.  That is, until my host mom subtlely suggested, “Anna, Noelia (my host sister) likes to eat her toast with butter and jelly on the same piece.”  I got the hint and it’s actually really good!  Other breakfast combos: cream cheese and jelly (even better than butter and jelly), a tomato/cream cheese paste with turkey, chocolate-filled croissants (another favorite).  Alongside my eatables, I have a glass of hot milk, to which I add either cafe cappucino (a powder which makes a sweet cappucino/latte type thing) or Cola Cao, which is the Spanish equivalent of something like Nestle or Ovaltine.

breakfast of toast and coffee

my usual view in the morning. recently my host mom let me pick out a new flavor of jelly!

Lunch here, not breakfast, is the most important meal of the day.  It is certainly the biggest, and because of that I am usually stuffed to the point of not moving for at least 20 minutes after the meal has ended.  I would say our most frequent dishes are soups and fish platters.  The soups are either creamy (usually cream of some type of vegetable) or those filled with beans (garbanzo, lentils) and a wide variety of vegetables.  I have learned to LOVE lentils, even though I did not like them at all before leaving.  My host mom usually adds some chorizo picante, or spicy sausage, to the lentil mixture.  I am truly upset now that the winter is over (which is weird for me) because Sevillians tend, logically, to not eat hot soups when it is 110 degrees outside.  The lentil days are numbered.

As far as fish, we have had what seems like every type imaginable.  Bacalao, sardines…I really don’t know the names of all of the fish.  My host mom always tells me “We’re having this fish today,” and then waits for me to react, because we have usually had that type of fish before.  But I can’t keep all the names straight and they all taste similar anyway.  It is crazy to me that 1) my host family eats the eyes, head, and tail of many types of fish and 2) that I usually have to remove the spines of the fish I eat.  I am not used to either of these things, though having been here for close to three months now I am growing accustomed to having to do it.  I am still not the biggest fan of fish but I need some protein in my life and being so close to the sea, it is a staple in many (most) Spanish homes.

We eat other things besides soup and fish.  Several times, my host mom has made a pasta bolognesa dish, which I absolutely adore.  This is the only lunch food that I finish before my host parents do.  Sometimes we have fried eggs and vegetables; sometimes we have chicken and french fries.  We always, always, always have bread, whether it is in typical roll form or in the form of “pico,” which are tiny crunchy breadsticks that I would probably refer to as crackers in the United States.  We’ll often have “salad,” which can either be a traditional salad with lettuce, shredded carrots, corn kernels, and vinegar dressing, or which can also be simply a whole tomato sliced up and topped with vinegar and some seasoning.  Tomatos are another food I didn’t like before coming here, and now they are the first thing I eat when I sit down.

After our salad and main course, we dig into a side dish that my host mom has prepared.  Many times these are empanadas, which are like small, fried dumplings filled with some type of meat or fish (for example, chicken or tuna).  Now that I think about it, this side dish is usually a fried food, whether it is an empanada or just plain old fried fish.  And after this, we all usually have a piece of fruit.  During my first few weeks here, oranges were the fruit of choice, and especially mandarinos, which are the perfect size orange and are easy to peel.  In January, I was eating 2 oranges per day because they were so plentiful and because I liked them so much.  Now, since oranges are going slightly out of season, they are harder to peel and not as sweet.  So, instead, we eat bananas, pears, and apples, with the rare strawberry thrown in there.  After the fruit, lunch is finally over, though my host parents usually have tea or coffee afterwards, extending lunch/the post-lunch siesta by another hour.

Dinner is a less extravagant affair.  Many times my host parents themselves do not even eat dinner because they are full from eating little snacks throughout the rest of the day.  Through March, when it was still “cold” outside, we would always have soup.  This is usually just hot water with a packet of some kind of stir-in soup/pasta.  At the beginning they would make fun of me because I couldn’t eat the soup while it was just out of the microwave.  “You eat so strangely,” my host dad said to me once.  “You take little bites of everything and you don’t eat the soup while it’s hot!”  Actually, Fernando, when I try to sip the hot soup it burns my tongue and mouth, so I have to eat everything else before it.  (I really am doing well with my host family.)  My host parents will also have a piece of fruit, and my host mom will give me my own portion of whatever fruit they are having.  Then she will also make me something else: eggs and sausages (which look exactly like hot dogs but taste better), microwave pizza (bocapizza), a piece of fish, a bocadillo.  The other week she made me 4 spring rolls and chips.  It was fantastic.

There have been a few awkward situations where I have to tell them that I don’t like certain foods.  One of the first of these was a plate called callos.  I remember being really hungry the day Rosa served it, and I also remember her explaining to me that she thought I would like it a lot.  So it was with eagerness that I dug into lunch and started forking the callos into my mouth.  About 3 bites in, I realized that the stuff had a weird texture and was a little chewy.  Two bites later I was no longer hungry because I kept thinking about how the callos looked like cow skin.  I am not a vegetarian and this was one of the first instances in my life when the reality of what was sitting in front of me–a dead animal–became overwhelming.  After not eating it for 10 minutes I apologized and told Rosa I couldn’t eat it.  She asked why, and my host sister said, “Because she doesn’t like it!”  Bluntly put, but Noelia hit the mark.  Later, I looked up callos on Wikipedia: its English equivalent, tripe, is “a type of edible offal from the stomachs of various farm animals.”  I made it clear that I absolutely cannot have this dish again.

Also famous in Spain are olives, which I have learned that I hate.  I was pretty much indifferent to them before arriving in Spain, though I rarely ate them.  That probably explains the indifference.  I can’t remember where I first tried olives here, but I have developed a strong aversion to them.  This is unfortunate because my host family loves olives, and they love to buy different kinds and to have me try them in case I end up liking one of them.  My host dad will prompt me: “Pruebalo!”  Try it!  I say, “No, Fernando, I really don’t like olives.”  Then my host mom will chime in: “No, but these are different than the other ones.  You will like them.”  I look at them for a minute before reluctantly plucking one from the bowl.  I even more reluctantly put it into my mouth, and then try to chew and swallow it as fast as possible.  They make my head hurt and I usually grab some bread to get the taste out of my mouth.  The most recent kind they had me try was filled with anchovies.  They were surprised when I didn’t like it.  I wasn’t.  I went through a week or so when my host mom was making me bocadillos with mortadello, or olive loaf, which in short is a type of ham that is ruined by the olives that are interspersed throughout it.  I had to claim that it was upsetting my stomach, which it really was.

I do actually like a lot of the food that my host mom cooks, and one time after I told her that, she gave me the name of the blog where she gets many of her recipes from.  It is called Cometelo, which in Spanish means “Eat it yourself.”  All of the recipes are in Spanish, but don’t forget that you conveniently have a translator (aka, the writer of this blog) if you see anything you like and want to understand what it is saying.  That will be the true test of my fluency.

Miscellaneous things

Here are some random details about my life that I thought you might find interesting!

  1. When I first got here, Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me” was the theme song for practically every Spanish soap opera I saw advertised.
  2. Most of my peers’ homestays (including mine) do not have printers.  Instead, we have to go to a local copisteria or papeleria, where we pay on average 10 cents per sheet printed.
  3. While it is usually warm year-round, days when it is cloudy, cool, or rainy hold up the laundry process.  All clothes are line-dried here, so if you need something to be clean/dry and it is cool or rainy, you are out of luck.
  4. The other day, my host parents sent me a short video of Sevilla via WhatsApp, which my host mom had me watch three times in one sitting.  She kept asking me if I could understand the music lyrics, and I told her I needed to listen more carefully.  She would restart the video, and then talk her way through it, so I could never hear the words enough to understand them.  About the video, my host mom said when I show it to my American friends, “Van a flipar.”  They are going to…flip?  I looked up “flipar” and it doesn’t translate, so I’m assuming they take influence from English.  I thought it was the funniest thing in the world.  (I’ll be sure to show you this video.)
  5. Speaking of language, my host dad told me the other day that his foot was “dormido.”  I asked him to clarify once or twice before realizing that they use the exact same expression in Spanish that we do in English to describe the phenomenon of their limbs being “asleep.”  It doesn’t sound like it would be a revelation, but it took me a few seconds to figure it out.


Well, this post ended up having only three sections, and what I have learned from the Spanish people so far, I am not surprised that these sections mainly consist of me talking about socializing and eating.  That is what life seems to be about here, and I’m not complaining.  Join me next time for another adventure (expect some news about Semana Santa!).


Location: Seville, Spain

Morocco

I guess the last time I left you all, I was about to make my way out of Spain and into the incredible continent of Africa for the first time in my life.  I am so excited to share my experience in Morocco with you, but first, here are the pictures from Granada that I promised (with captions!).

Granada

We made visits to the barrios of Sacromonte, Albaicin, and to the Alhambra, which is an enormous and ancient palace that used to house the Moors.  We also ate some really great food and made friends with a really nice bartender named Maryann, who worked at a little cafe/restaurant near our Air BnB.

view of Granada and Alhambra from the mountain

La Alhambra on the left, and the city of Granada on the right

panorama of Granada and Alhambra from  Mirador de San Nicolas

another shot of Granada/Alhambra, this time from the Mirador de San Nicolas

gardens inside the Alhambra

gardens inside the Alhambra

 

breakfast of coffee and a bocadillo with Spanish ham

your typical Spanish breakfast: coffee and a bocadillo of Spanish ham, olive oil, and a light tomato spread

Morocco

picture of the Atlantic coast in Rabat, Morocco

Granada was absolutely lovely, but what I am about to share with you about Morocco was a completely different kind of experience.  It was not what you or I would normally consider a “vacation,” and I’m glad it wasn’t.

There has been a certain comfort in visiting the European highlights; though I didn’t necessarily know places like Portugal, Granada, and Barcelona before visiting them, I at least had an idea of what to expect.  I knew that we would be relatively safe traveling on our own; I knew that we could easily navigate public transportation to get where we needed to go; I was aware of the social customs that should govern our behavior while visiting these places.  The familiarity was comfortable, or at least comfortable enough so as not to overwhelm my travels.

For Morocco, I immediately felt like that this more or less guaranteed comfort went right out the window.  We were told that the ferry from Tarifa (in Spain) to Tangier (in Morocco) might be rough.  That we shouldn’t stray too far from the group once we disembarked.  That when we walked through the outdoor market in Tangier, there might be bloody animals hanging from the roofs of the vendors’ stands (there were).  That we should not drink the tap water or else we would risk getting sick (some did).  That we should carry our passports on us at all times, because in many places, we could be stopped and asked for proof of our presence in Morocco.  These warnings gave me some fear.  It was with shaky legs that I followed our wonderful tour guide, Sarah, off the boat and handed my freshly-stamped passport to the imposing, uniformed guard in Tangier.

picture of our travel group

Our travel group on the bus. We were limited to one backpack each for our 4 days in Morocco.

CIEE (my study abroad program) decided to conduct our tour of Morocco through an amazing organization called Morocco Exchange.  As I said, we were assigned to Sarah, who had been a Peace Corps volunteer for several years and now currently lives in Rabat, the country’s capital.  We were lucky to have Sarah as our guide for many reasons, I think especially because she had an awareness of our naivety and of our touristy tendencies as Americans.  But she combined this awareness with the experience of living alongside the Moroccan people and the understanding of their customs and behavior.  Therefore she was able to acknowledge many of our misconceptions and gently present us with a raw understanding of how things really are in this developing country: that most houses don’t have access to hot water; that many women (girls) are forced to marry at a young age; that the illiteracy rates are high among both men and women; that children often must travel (alone) miles and miles to school on a bus early in the morning in order to attend school, and for this reason many of them drop out.

Sarah shared with us a touching story about her time serving in a small village in the Peace Corps.  Her host sister, who was maybe 15 or 16 years old, was about to be married to a much older man.  This sister was nervous and upset, and Sarah was trying to comfort her.  Sarah classified this as both a high point and a low point of her time in the Peace Corps, and admitted that the memory always made her sad.  She started crying as she was telling the story, and I think this was the point when I reflected on how real the experience was and how real the people in Morocco are and always will be, even if in the United States we can’t see or hear them.

We don’t see people sitting on the guardrails of the highways in the countryside, not because they want to go somewhere else but because they don’t have anywhere else to go.  We don’t see children walking along deserted roads in the countryside, probably making their way back from school, which could be hours away from home.  We don’t see the square miles of shanty towns, the groups of homes made from tin sheets and cardboard, around which often the government often builds walls so other inhabitants of the city don’t have to see the poverty.  As is the case for so many of the things we do (or don’t do), it’s easier to construct barriers than to deal with the problem.

an enormous grave site in Rabat

You may not be able to tell (I couldn’t), but this is an enormous field full of gravestones.

I don’t mean to convey that the people of Morocco sit around all day and think about how difficult their lives are, because this was absolutely not the case.  In fact, nearly every Moroccan person I met seemed genuinely happy, not only to discuss their own lives but also to compare their life in Morocco to ours in the United States.  One of the great things about this program was that, each day, we were able to sit down with a group of Moroccans–two groups of students from Rabat, one family from the rural countryside–and just talk.  We talked about what their educational experiences had been like, what their views on homosexuality were, how dating and relationships function.  These conversations were many things: they were sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes funny.  But all of the time, they were informative and emotionally enriching.

In many ways, we (the members of our American group) were similar to the Moroccan students.  We both expressed a yearning for quality education–for one group, it was more accessible than the other.  We talked about travel–because so many Moroccans and North Africans seek a better life in Europe, it is much more difficult for them to travel north (ie, obtain a passport) than for us to travel south.  Sarah reminded us on our last day that one of the Moroccan students who had accompanied us (and had served as our translator when we talked with the Moroccan family) wouldn’t be able to enter the Spanish enclave of Ceuta (or Sebta) with us because he lacked a “blue book.”  Our passports are so much more valuable than we often realize.

I feel like I’m rambling.  Let me tell you briefly about some of my favorite things:

  1. That I was left breathless at the sight of hundreds of Muslims bowing together in prayer
  2. The flawless hospitality of our host families, who provided us with more food than we possibly could have eaten in the 2 days we spent with them and many of whom offered us a place to stay should we return to Morocco
  3. Being able to hear the stories of many Moroccans, young and old, and also the stories of Americans who have lived and worked alongside these Moroccans
  4. How the presence of God (Allah) permeated not only the physical landscape in the form of mosques, but also the social landscape in the form of language (I heard the phrase “Enshallah,” meaning “God willing,” more times than I could count)
the mountainside city of Chefchaoen

the “tucked away” mountainside city of Chefchaoen–our last stop

I don’t really know what you’re going to take away from this post, disorganized as it is.  To be honest, I am still trying to make sense of my experience, though I enjoyed every minute of it.  But between the time I returned from my trip and sat on my bed, exhausted and amazed, and now, two weeks later as I am writing this post, I haven’t been able to answer any of the enormous questions that Morocco put in front of me.  Why have I been granted such a privileged life while millions of girls (and boys) in Morocco haven’t?  Do I have a responsibility to help those who aren’t as privileged?  Is there any such thing as “responsibility,” or is it just a way of justifying the process of imposing our own worldviews on others because we believe that our way is the best or only way?  How will I ever be able to return to my “normal” life in the United States without that pull in my heart, telling me to remember all that I learned in Morocco?

*

This weekend will be the first that I haven’t traveled since…I think the end of January or the beginning of February.  Wow!  I am tired but have a good amount of travel still to go.  It’s nice to be in Seville this weekend though, and I am slowly realizing that I wish I had stayed here for an entire year just so I could see everything I want to see and still have plenty of time to enjoy the city where I’m actually studying.  I was hoping this weekend to have a chance to get to some of the museums but I forgot that the main reason I didn’t plan travel for this weekend was because I have midterms next week.  I did, however, sign up for a hike in the Sierra Norte tomorrow, so I’ll be studying the day away today.  Look out for another post soon about how things are going here in Seville (preview: they are going really well)!

 

 

 


Location: Rabat, Morocco

The sights of Sevilla

a Spanish cafe on a Saturday night

For those reading some of the other posts on this site, everything being written is true: it is extremely difficult to keep up a blog while abroad.  I’m glad I have made a commitment to the GeoBlog, since I am obligated to post with a certain frequency (I just spelled frequency like this: frecuency, similar to the Spanish equivalent frecuencia).  But scheduling time to write is very hard, especially when I am trying to form relationships here with my peers as well as dedicate time to my Spanish familia.  I apologize for not posting sooner but I plan to write again towards the end of this week.

I think part of what is getting me is the energy of this city and the people around me.  There is an element of frantic desire to live and experience things, which I think the photograph above these paragraphs captures.  I took this picture at a bar/cafe in el centro of Sevilla; I went with some friends there to get churros con chocolate (a type of fried dough, covered in sugar, which you then dip in the melted chocolate).  The cafe-tenders were yelling and in a sort of purposeful frenzy.  They seemed to be loving every minute and were joking and laughing with the many customers at the bar.  “Proximo!  Un cafe con leche!  Vamos!” they called out.  The customers fed off of the energy of the men behind the counter and laughed right along with them.

This is the energy that I become wrapped up in every day.  I lose track of time and when I do have a few hours free, I feel the need to rest and recharge, probably due to my inherently introverted nature.  But my friends in this program are eager to see and do everything they possibly can, as am I, and when the situation demands your full attention and participation, you find that you have the emotional and psychological resources to get your head in the game (so to speak).  I think this is part of how you grow and mature.

But enough of this psychological mumbo jumbo!  Here I list some of the things that have been occupying my time in the past week and a half, during which time I have not written a blog!

Dinner in Sevilla, plus a trip to the discoteca

Last Saturday night, January 17, a group of us went out to the centro in Sevilla to celebrate our one friend’s birthday.  It was a fairly large group–I think around 15 total–and because the restaurants in Sevilla are fairly small (especially in el centro, where cafes and bars thrive on the visits of small groups, not large ones) we had to sit outside.  Luckily there were heaters, but oh my gosh.  It was around 55 degrees with a breeze.  Warmer than State College, but not quite summer weather, or even spring.  Regardless, it was a nice dinner: I ordered a small bocadillo (sandwich) with smoked salmon and cheese, served with chips.  Then we headed to a discoteca called Buddha (if you look it up online, it is actually called Kudeta, but for some reason everyone calls it Buddha).

a stamp for the discoteca

We were stamped in and explored a little bit!  Buddha has three floors, all playing great music, but a group and I decided to stay on the second floor (actually considered the first floor in Spain, and the rest follow accordingly), where they were playing some Spanish hip hop.  It was about 1:30AM when we arrived, and we spent the next 4 hours dancing.  One of the things that amazes me about the nightlife in Sevilla is how late it starts and how long it lasts.  We were there until 5:30AM and there were people that stayed hours longer than we did.  I have no idea how they have so much stamina.

Local Finds

One of the things that has been really fun in Sevilla is just walking around and seeing what kinds of things you can stumble upon.  Restaurants, sights, cafes, artwork, you name it.

Ofelia’s Bakery

Ofelia's Bakery in Sevilla

A friend in my intensive class discovered this before coming to Sevilla and it happened to be very close to the CIEE center in el centro.  They sell cupcakes, brownies, coffee, all kinds of sweets.  It’s tiny but wonderful.  I bought an Oreo cupcake for my host mom and a carrot cake cupcake for me.  Yum.

cupcake's at Ofelia's Bakery in Sevilla

Apparently nameless tapas bar

focaccias at a tapas bar

We actually first saw the back of this tapas bar while walking along the river one day.  We thought it looked really cool!  Then a week later a few of us were on our way to buy bus tickets to Portugal (look for the post about my trip on Friday!) and we walked into the same place.  We looked everywhere for a name but couldn’t find one.  It seems like it is more of a building that houses many small vendors, each selling something different–wine, gelato, focaccias, etc.  I’m excited to come here intentionally one day and spend some time trying different foods.

Various architectural sites

Sevilla is teeming with incredible architecture, even in places where you wouldn’t think to find it.  After class one day I was walking around with a friend and we took a random turn down a street that looked pretty.  We ended up in a pretty little park that didn’t have a name (seems to be a trend).  We found a bench where we were able to sit in the sun and bask while watching the people and their dogs (plus many stray cats) pass.

an old tree in a Sevillan park

a pretty pathway we took while walking

Some other great things I’ve seen/done/been to:

  • a coffee shop/bar (the combo is pretty common here) called Mercado Provenzal, where they sell coffee that costs half of a Euro
  • the church (iglesia) where my host parents were married (doesn’t your heart swell?)
  • a local chain of coffee called Cafe de Indios (I think that is the right name)
  • another local chain for sandwiches called 100 Montaditos (where they actually have 100 different kinds of montaditos, or tiny sandwiches)

It’s that time again.  Currently it’s 12:53AM in Sevilla and my bed is calling me.  But, like I said, I’ll be writing again towards the end of this week, and I’ll have pictures of my weekend trip to Faro, Portugal.  Hasta luego!


Location: Plaza Nueva, Sevilla