So we are a little more than one week into our Europe travels. We started in Madrid, and I learned a ton about the city through tours and spending times in the museums as a tourist with Leona. Then we headed to Paris via train, and it was absolutely beautiful, but getting a bit chilly. We TOTALLY conquered that city in a few days and I feel surprisingly comfortable with getting around the city. We've been in Amsterdam for a few days, and even with the cloudy and gray weather, it is and absolutely incredible city (although I still get a bit lost here without the map, sometimes). Today is our last day in Amsterdam and we are taking a night train to Prague in about an hour. Other than not being able to buy a bus ticket from Amsterdam to Prague because it was full (thus having to pay DOUBLE for a train ticket, gross), things have been running pretty smoothly. We're really great at budgeting and supermarkets are our best friends. Even the weather, up until today, has been pretty good, with some glimpses of sun. But now it is pouring and cold in Amsterdam so we are hoping the weather in Prague is better than this!
Sorry I have been bad about updating my blog and don't have much details about our travels yet. I will try to add some as soon as I can, as well as loading pictures, but we will see when that happens.
Love you all, and yes, you should be totally jealous :)
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Morocco; Tangier and Tetouan, November 16th through the 19th
My friend from class who had studied in Rabat last fall really wanted to revisit Morocco for a few weeks after our study abroad in Spain, and since I had a few days before my friend, Leona would come from the USA for our big Europe trip, I decided to go on a little Morocco escapade for 4 days after our program ended.
We flew into Tanger and had a pension there for a few days. Our toilets had half-seats so we did not have to squat there, but it was one of few that we encountered on our trip there. We walked around and enjoyed the incredible weather and ate delicious fruit and vegetables that you can buy from stands right off the street. Our hostel room got really cold at night, but the thick Moroccan blankets really helped.
And of course, there is all the heckling from the Moroccan men. It's kind of interesting because I realize that although I am on the "lighter" side of "Indian people", skin color wise, I blend in really well with the Moroccans and their skin color, thus, some of the men think I am a non-jihab wearing, "American clothing wearing", possibly "super liberal" Moroccan woman. So even when I got back to Madrid, I realized some men were heckling me with Arabic "blessings"such as hamdulillah...it's kind of intense.
Anyways, our first day in Tanger was really nice. Our second day, we discovered the old town some more and walked the narrow streets until Kasbah, which is near a vista point where we can see the ocean meeting the mediterranean sea, which is absolutely breathtaking. We had a picnic on the beach with some fresh fruits and bread and avocado. It was sunny but a little windy so we had a bit of sandy bread, but it was not a big deal. We splurged for some Thai food and utilized their "real" bathrooms to the best of our abilities. In the evening, we sat on a little bench right outside the "Medina" (old city) and these really kind Arabic guys from Casablanca conversed with us. Of course we were nervous at first, holding our purses close and such, but they were really genuine, with no bad intentions, and we just talked about Tanger and their jobs (working at Pizza Hut, even though they are all university educated), etc. Our languages were a mix of my broken french, Hannah's broken arabic, and their broken english; very difficult to say the least.
The next day, we started off bright and early to Tetouan on a bus (we had found out the times of the buses the day before by walking to the station.). It was about an hour long bus ride with beautiful scenery, but I tried to sleep for it so I wouldn't get bus/motion sick. Tetouan's bus station was new and not as close to the inner part of the city as Hannah's Lonely Planet guide indicated, so we treked up to the inner city after asking directions.
Tetouan is really beautiful, with Rif mountains lining the sky and very white Moroccan architecture. We walked around the Medina a bit here as well, and utilized our Spanish skills to get around. We ran into some carpet dealers but did NOT end up buying their carpet (this is a rarity). They got really close to selling it, and even "agreed" to sell it to me for my 150 dirham price (15 euros), bringing the price down from 1,600 (haha), but I realized Moroccan carpets are similar to the Indian kashmiris that we already have in our house, so I was able to say that I don't have enough room in my bag to bring it back. Phew. We also were looking for a cyber cafe to inform people we are okay in Morocco and ran into this professor at a French/English/Arabic school near the cyber cafe who thought I was arabic, and was a little surprised that it was in fact Hannah who knew the language while I did not. Because he was VERY enthusiastic about Hannah knowing Arabic, we were able to use the computer's at the language school AND he treated us to a real couscous lunch and mint tea! We were stuffed to the rim. He was really kind and it was the best trade off; to spend some time with this man around the city and get a free meal out of it. It was enough to last us through dinner!
We took the bus back to Tanger that night to sleep in our pension. I ended up playing a few rounds of chess with the guys that work at the pension, some of the sweetest guys I have ever met. The next morning, we were sitting on a bench eating some more "tangerines"(the fruit, not the people :-P), and a hungry guy walked past motioning to his mouth as if he was hungry. Right behind him, ANOTHER guy did that, and although at first it seemed like the entire world was heckling us for some food, we soon realized the second guy was actually one of the kind men that works at the pension, and he was just mocking the guy in front of him (to get him to stop bothering us). We all laughed sooo hard for 10 minutes about that! It was one of those "you had to be there" kind of moments...sorry. Anyways, a little after that Hannah headed off for the bus station to get a bus to Rabat and I hung out with the guys until my taxi arrived to take me to the airport. On the taxi ride, there was beautiful arabic music playing on the radio with the Moroccan scenery going by and I knew I would really miss this place and should go back soon.
We flew into Tanger and had a pension there for a few days. Our toilets had half-seats so we did not have to squat there, but it was one of few that we encountered on our trip there. We walked around and enjoyed the incredible weather and ate delicious fruit and vegetables that you can buy from stands right off the street. Our hostel room got really cold at night, but the thick Moroccan blankets really helped.
And of course, there is all the heckling from the Moroccan men. It's kind of interesting because I realize that although I am on the "lighter" side of "Indian people", skin color wise, I blend in really well with the Moroccans and their skin color, thus, some of the men think I am a non-jihab wearing, "American clothing wearing", possibly "super liberal" Moroccan woman. So even when I got back to Madrid, I realized some men were heckling me with Arabic "blessings"such as hamdulillah...it's kind of intense.
Anyways, our first day in Tanger was really nice. Our second day, we discovered the old town some more and walked the narrow streets until Kasbah, which is near a vista point where we can see the ocean meeting the mediterranean sea, which is absolutely breathtaking. We had a picnic on the beach with some fresh fruits and bread and avocado. It was sunny but a little windy so we had a bit of sandy bread, but it was not a big deal. We splurged for some Thai food and utilized their "real" bathrooms to the best of our abilities. In the evening, we sat on a little bench right outside the "Medina" (old city) and these really kind Arabic guys from Casablanca conversed with us. Of course we were nervous at first, holding our purses close and such, but they were really genuine, with no bad intentions, and we just talked about Tanger and their jobs (working at Pizza Hut, even though they are all university educated), etc. Our languages were a mix of my broken french, Hannah's broken arabic, and their broken english; very difficult to say the least.
The next day, we started off bright and early to Tetouan on a bus (we had found out the times of the buses the day before by walking to the station.). It was about an hour long bus ride with beautiful scenery, but I tried to sleep for it so I wouldn't get bus/motion sick. Tetouan's bus station was new and not as close to the inner part of the city as Hannah's Lonely Planet guide indicated, so we treked up to the inner city after asking directions.
Tetouan is really beautiful, with Rif mountains lining the sky and very white Moroccan architecture. We walked around the Medina a bit here as well, and utilized our Spanish skills to get around. We ran into some carpet dealers but did NOT end up buying their carpet (this is a rarity). They got really close to selling it, and even "agreed" to sell it to me for my 150 dirham price (15 euros), bringing the price down from 1,600 (haha), but I realized Moroccan carpets are similar to the Indian kashmiris that we already have in our house, so I was able to say that I don't have enough room in my bag to bring it back. Phew. We also were looking for a cyber cafe to inform people we are okay in Morocco and ran into this professor at a French/English/Arabic school near the cyber cafe who thought I was arabic, and was a little surprised that it was in fact Hannah who knew the language while I did not. Because he was VERY enthusiastic about Hannah knowing Arabic, we were able to use the computer's at the language school AND he treated us to a real couscous lunch and mint tea! We were stuffed to the rim. He was really kind and it was the best trade off; to spend some time with this man around the city and get a free meal out of it. It was enough to last us through dinner!
We took the bus back to Tanger that night to sleep in our pension. I ended up playing a few rounds of chess with the guys that work at the pension, some of the sweetest guys I have ever met. The next morning, we were sitting on a bench eating some more "tangerines"(the fruit, not the people :-P), and a hungry guy walked past motioning to his mouth as if he was hungry. Right behind him, ANOTHER guy did that, and although at first it seemed like the entire world was heckling us for some food, we soon realized the second guy was actually one of the kind men that works at the pension, and he was just mocking the guy in front of him (to get him to stop bothering us). We all laughed sooo hard for 10 minutes about that! It was one of those "you had to be there" kind of moments...sorry. Anyways, a little after that Hannah headed off for the bus station to get a bus to Rabat and I hung out with the guys until my taxi arrived to take me to the airport. On the taxi ride, there was beautiful arabic music playing on the radio with the Moroccan scenery going by and I knew I would really miss this place and should go back soon.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Barcelona! November 4th through the 9th
Pictures are in my Barcelona Picasa Album and more will be up on this blog soon!
I decided to take a night bus between Tuesday night of November 4th and Wednesday, November 5th so my only way of knowing about the elections was holding my phone in my hand and praying that my parents call me as soon as they know the results, which happens to be around 5:00am. But luckily, after hearing Obama's voice giving the victory speech, I was in a great mood and I started off my Barcelona trip on a pretty good food.
When I first arrived at Barcelona early Wednesday morning, I met up a friend of a Carleton friend, Cris Alomar. Since she is a med student at Universitat Autònoma De Barcelona (the university an hour out of the city), she has class and labs almost all day, so after some croissants and good mornings, she headed off to school and Barcelona was at my disposal. After a little nap, I headed out towards downtown because Cris's sister's apartment (where she stays during the school year) is a bit out of downtown. I took this thing called “bicing” which is basically a city wide bike system (LOTS of biker's in Barcelona) and also one of the most horrendously maintained systems ever. Either every bike is broken, or the “stands” from which you take the bikes (electronic) don't work, or after your “half hour” with a bike is done and you are trying to return your bike, all the stands are full and you can't put your bike back (I just heard from everyone that you need to return it after half an hour...I have yet to know what happens if you have it out for more than half an hour). After being attacked by a bicing that sort of fell on me while I was adjusting the seat (yay being short) and then finally getting the bike to work but being lost, I decided to ditch it at the closest stand (which took about half an hour to find...hopefully Cris will let me know what happens after keeping the bike out for so long) and decided to walk downtown. Point being, it was a good story to tell, but it's much more of a “local” thing than for a tourist, so I will just stick to walking and public transport.
I got downtown and just meandered through “Las Ramblas” and Barri Gothic most of the afternoon. The architecture and the scenery of Barcelona are just breath taking. It was very touristy, with tons of street performers and such, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. At around 8pm, Cris and I met up as planned in front of FNAC (Spain's equivalent of “Borders”) and headed through Barrio Born (looks like Barri Gothic but a few less tourists) for some pizza for dinner. On the way home from this area, Cris insisted on taking a bicing, making me sit on the back while she “stood and pedaled (hard work!!)” and I was kind of nervous the whole time, although it wasn't too bad. When we got to Monument de Colon, I realized that we were by the water at night time and since it was ridiculously beautiful, I wanted to take a stroll along the pier with her, chatting the whole time. We soon went back to her house (via metro) and it was a great day overall.
The next day, Cris's university was going to have a HUGE university wide festival, with tons of food and stalls and music and through time, this has evolved to a bit of a drinking thing too (Carleton kids: Think Spring Concert times twenty) and since she was the head of the budget committee for the med students, she had to be there all day so I went with her for a while. It was really fun to see all these students so excited about their school and departments and I loved seeing the “traditional human castillan (?)”. Around 3pm, I decided I would head back to Barcelona by myself and see a few more sights before Cris came back at night.
I first went Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's famous cathedral that has been in construction for hundreds of years but I was not impressed. Well, impressed, yes, but I did not find it that aesthetically pleasing, just a lot of stuff going on...way too much in fact. I was a bit nervous that I was the only person who did not absolutely love the Sagrada Familia but I later heard from Cris and several of Cris's friends that they felt the same way, with no offense to Gaudi, so that was a bit reassuring. Then I went to the Picasso Museum and coincidentally ran into another friend of a friend from Carleton and spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening with her. Cris didn't come back until very late because I guess they ran into some huge economic issues and she had to try to fix them (which is kind of foreseeable when some college students are drinking during the day and trying to manage a food stand at the same time).
The next day, Cris skipped some morning classes to hang out with me and show me some more aesthetically pleasing Gaudi architecture. We also went shopping and bought the same kind of boots (we are a bit too similar) and had a picnic in a park. Then she had to go to a lab so I wandered around Barcelona a bit more. At this point, I knew the streets really well, and am pretty sure I knew it better than Cris herself (as she told me). Then I took a train to meet Cris at her school after her lab was over, and we drove to Premia, a town a bit outside of Barcelona where she grew up. We cooked a dinner and she had some friends over and it was really fun night, other than the frustrating aspect of her friends changing from Castellano (“Spanish”) to Catalan (a hybrid between Spanish an French spoken in Cataluña).
The next day, we spent the morning in Premia and went back to Barcelona in the evening. I took my first motorcycle ride from her house to the train station and that was really intense. The train ride from Premia to Barcelona was soo beautiful, right along the water at sunset. We went to Park Guell and then the fountains of Montjuic in the evening and it was all very dreamlike. I took a morning bus on Sunday morning to take back to Madrid and saw some more beautiful hills and greenery on my really long bus ride back.
I decided to take a night bus between Tuesday night of November 4th and Wednesday, November 5th so my only way of knowing about the elections was holding my phone in my hand and praying that my parents call me as soon as they know the results, which happens to be around 5:00am. But luckily, after hearing Obama's voice giving the victory speech, I was in a great mood and I started off my Barcelona trip on a pretty good food.
When I first arrived at Barcelona early Wednesday morning, I met up a friend of a Carleton friend, Cris Alomar. Since she is a med student at Universitat Autònoma De Barcelona (the university an hour out of the city), she has class and labs almost all day, so after some croissants and good mornings, she headed off to school and Barcelona was at my disposal. After a little nap, I headed out towards downtown because Cris's sister's apartment (where she stays during the school year) is a bit out of downtown. I took this thing called “bicing” which is basically a city wide bike system (LOTS of biker's in Barcelona) and also one of the most horrendously maintained systems ever. Either every bike is broken, or the “stands” from which you take the bikes (electronic) don't work, or after your “half hour” with a bike is done and you are trying to return your bike, all the stands are full and you can't put your bike back (I just heard from everyone that you need to return it after half an hour...I have yet to know what happens if you have it out for more than half an hour). After being attacked by a bicing that sort of fell on me while I was adjusting the seat (yay being short) and then finally getting the bike to work but being lost, I decided to ditch it at the closest stand (which took about half an hour to find...hopefully Cris will let me know what happens after keeping the bike out for so long) and decided to walk downtown. Point being, it was a good story to tell, but it's much more of a “local” thing than for a tourist, so I will just stick to walking and public transport.
I got downtown and just meandered through “Las Ramblas” and Barri Gothic most of the afternoon. The architecture and the scenery of Barcelona are just breath taking. It was very touristy, with tons of street performers and such, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. At around 8pm, Cris and I met up as planned in front of FNAC (Spain's equivalent of “Borders”) and headed through Barrio Born (looks like Barri Gothic but a few less tourists) for some pizza for dinner. On the way home from this area, Cris insisted on taking a bicing, making me sit on the back while she “stood and pedaled (hard work!!)” and I was kind of nervous the whole time, although it wasn't too bad. When we got to Monument de Colon, I realized that we were by the water at night time and since it was ridiculously beautiful, I wanted to take a stroll along the pier with her, chatting the whole time. We soon went back to her house (via metro) and it was a great day overall.
The next day, Cris's university was going to have a HUGE university wide festival, with tons of food and stalls and music and through time, this has evolved to a bit of a drinking thing too (Carleton kids: Think Spring Concert times twenty) and since she was the head of the budget committee for the med students, she had to be there all day so I went with her for a while. It was really fun to see all these students so excited about their school and departments and I loved seeing the “traditional human castillan (?)”. Around 3pm, I decided I would head back to Barcelona by myself and see a few more sights before Cris came back at night.
I first went Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's famous cathedral that has been in construction for hundreds of years but I was not impressed. Well, impressed, yes, but I did not find it that aesthetically pleasing, just a lot of stuff going on...way too much in fact. I was a bit nervous that I was the only person who did not absolutely love the Sagrada Familia but I later heard from Cris and several of Cris's friends that they felt the same way, with no offense to Gaudi, so that was a bit reassuring. Then I went to the Picasso Museum and coincidentally ran into another friend of a friend from Carleton and spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening with her. Cris didn't come back until very late because I guess they ran into some huge economic issues and she had to try to fix them (which is kind of foreseeable when some college students are drinking during the day and trying to manage a food stand at the same time).
The next day, Cris skipped some morning classes to hang out with me and show me some more aesthetically pleasing Gaudi architecture. We also went shopping and bought the same kind of boots (we are a bit too similar) and had a picnic in a park. Then she had to go to a lab so I wandered around Barcelona a bit more. At this point, I knew the streets really well, and am pretty sure I knew it better than Cris herself (as she told me). Then I took a train to meet Cris at her school after her lab was over, and we drove to Premia, a town a bit outside of Barcelona where she grew up. We cooked a dinner and she had some friends over and it was really fun night, other than the frustrating aspect of her friends changing from Castellano (“Spanish”) to Catalan (a hybrid between Spanish an French spoken in Cataluña).
The next day, we spent the morning in Premia and went back to Barcelona in the evening. I took my first motorcycle ride from her house to the train station and that was really intense. The train ride from Premia to Barcelona was soo beautiful, right along the water at sunset. We went to Park Guell and then the fountains of Montjuic in the evening and it was all very dreamlike. I took a morning bus on Sunday morning to take back to Madrid and saw some more beautiful hills and greenery on my really long bus ride back.
Class trip to Galicia, October 23rd through 26th
So right after the whole ballot not coming shindig, our class headed to Galicia, the little "pan handle" of Spain above Portugal, and although it isn't as famous as Andalucia (Sevilla, Cordoba, Granada), it is really gorgeous and a popular place for Spaniards to visit. Our first city there was A Coruña which, climate wise, I would compare it to Seattle because it is on the ocean and has a reputation of a lot of rain ("the rain in Spain stays mainly in Galicia"). Although the architecture revolves around this rainy weather with "galleries" that are glassed in porches, we got perfect weather for the few days we were there.Our four star hotel (!!) Pazo do Rio was incredible, with an old style main building and modern "casitas" which can hold entire, large, families, but we were able to share between one or two people. Then began the influx of food that never ended. We first ate at a restaurant with delicious cheesy potatoes and chicken with lots of wine. Then we walked around the city a bit, and it was time for dinner. Our class went to a tapas bar (meal pre-paid for by our professor), which began pretty inoccently with a LOT of eggplant lasagna. It then moved to mountains of "croquetes" and we were all content. Then we got some tortilla española (spanish "omlette"). Then came A TON of calamari with potatoes. Then giant plates of mussles. Then plates of lamb and potatoes. And even more tapas, and all this doesn't begin to describe half the food we ate. And with ever HUGE plate of food came 2 giant jugs of delicious sangria. The food kept coming, and so did the sangria. The freshness of the seafood made it so good and that night, I realized that maybe it is possible to explode from eating too much..but it was just too delicious to pass up.
The following day, we went to Santiago de Compostela, known for it's giant ornate cathedral at the end of the "camino", pilgrimage that many Catholics walk to this day. Santiago de Compostela is also "St. James", the saint of traveling, but has an alter ego as well as Santiago Matamoros. Basically, to this day, little statues in the cathedral show an angry faced Santiago on a white horse with a machete in his hand, with dying Moors underfoot. They have "covered" the lower part of this with a giant bouquet of white flowers, but it doesn't really help that much.
The next day day we walked 9 km of the beautiful Camino, saw bagpipers and shoemakers and a museum in a small town outside of Santiago. We got to talk to some locals and spend time with incredibly nice people. We had a "pilgrim's" lunch along the walk as well, with delicious chicken and lentils that are tastier than they look.
Our last morning, we took a tour of the A Coruña coast which is absolutely magnificent (take a look at my Galicia Picasa Album for more pictures) and learned about the histories of a lot of the random statues that pop up along the shoreline. Most exciting was a bench that is shaped just like the super slanted pool furniture that makes you fall asleep in seconds. A bunch of us took a really nice nap, listening to the lapping waves on the shore and with the sun on our faces. And undoubtedly, to continue with the theme of this trip, we ended our last day in Galicia with a ridiculously delicious lunch at restaurant, with TONS of fresh seafood and bread and more wine.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Awful Luck
As I was working on an essay today and chatting with a friend, my macbook froze. I tried to force quit everything but it did not work. Then I force shut it down holding down the button. After waiting a few minutes, when trying to turn it on again, I got startup sound, a gray apple on a screen, but nothing more. Ive done everything possible to fix it but I think its the motherboard and its a Sunday so every place here is closed, plus there is no mac store yet. I only needed my computer for a few more weeks before traveling Europe and Ill be able to live without it, it will just be tough to contact you all. I hope you are all doing well and send me emails and I will try to respond when I can...
Love,
Jojo
Love,
Jojo
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