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.

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

...Absentee Ballot

It finally came on Thursday, October 23rd, which was the day I left for Galicia for a four day class trip.

Why voting abroad is awful

So last Friday, October 17th, after waiting and checking and bothering our Municipal clerk with emails (who assured me it had been sent last week; lost in the mail...?), and waiting some more for my ballot to come, I was beginning to lose hope that it would arrive (most of my other classmates here had already received theirs). Coincidentally, I received a Madrid_Warden "US Embassy in Spain" email in the morning before class. These always look like spam emails, but I think we were signed up to learn more about voting abroad, etc. The subject of this email was "Final Reminder to VOTE!" and a section that said "Ballot hasn't arrive yet?" recommended the Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot (also known as the "FWAB") which we can print and send or fill out at the embassy, as a back-up vote, if the absentee ballot never arrives. Note: if the absentee ballot DOES arrive later, you have to fill that out and send it back ASAP as well, because that's what they are waiting for. I checked the US Embassy website and it closes at 1pm, and I figured getting this ballot filled out before the weekend would be the best way to ensure that SOME sort of vote goes in, so I decided I would have to sacrifice a class to get this vote in.

So the US Embassy is inconveniently located in between some metro stations, but after a little asking around, arriving at the BACK of the embassy and having to walk around it, I finally was able to get there. Luckily, I was not one of the hundreds of people trying to get a passport so by the time I was done filling out my "FWAB", my "number" was called (it's like the DMV, with TONS more people). Granted, no one was at the window with my number on it, but I think they were a bit occupied with a more serious situation. An American woman who had stayed in Madrid for 10 days and was on her way to airport, suitcase in hand, when someone slipped their hand into her purse and robbed her on the metro (and her passport was also one of those things so she was trying to get a new passport before her flight left that same day). Terrible terrible luck. Note to self: even if it is the LAST day in Europe, never forget to guard my stuff with my life.

Finally, I got my vote in, got the consulate to sign as a witness, got everything taken care of, and for free, so I was more or less content. Trying to find the closest metro to get to school was tough because I was a bit misoriented and basically smack dab in between 4 metro stops all around me, but I figured it out and got to class with 10 minutes left (I felt really bad about...but the professor did not seem to upset...). This was my 2 hour adventure on Friday.

But wait, that's not all. Remember; this blog is about the adventures of Jojo. And my life seems to be full of them.

After the second class, I came home to a response from the Madison Municipal Clerk to my very angry email about not yet recieving my ballot (sent two nights prior), and they had conveniently attached my absentee ballot to this email...wish they could have done that before I went through all the hassle to go the embassy. I figured I'd continue to be patient and wait till Monday, especially because if my ballot did come in the mail by Monday, it'd be a lot easier to fill it out and send it back than finding a cyber cafe, paying to use internet/print off the ballot from my email, buy the stamp/envelope, the list goes on.

Well unfortunately, my ballot did not arrive by Monday and since I did "technically" recieve my absentee ballot (via email...does that even count?) and am supposed to send it in if do get it, I need to get it done before it is too late. I went to a cyber cafe Monday night (where I realized that every cyber cafe is run by Bengalis, just like me, although I think most are Bangladeshi), and printed off the pages. With help from my friend from class as a "US Citizen Witness", I filled out the ballot while sitting on a park bench near her house.

Tuesday morning, I realized I had some random envelopes so I didn't have to pay to buy some, so I filled everything out, with my name/address on everything, twice, and taped my envelope shut. I went to the bus station to buy my bus tickets to Barcelona and luckily, right outside the bus station was a "Correos" post office, and I just wanted to make sure my envelope was not overweight and would ACTUALLY get there (hopefully, in time!). When I asked for a regular stamp, the lady weighed my envelope and told me that it was .02 grams over the .2 gram limit, and thus would be about 1euro more. I commenced to open the envelope, tore off half a page which was just blank white, gave it all back to her, and it was perfectly fine (thank God), and I carefully watched her glue it shut and put it in the mail courier.

So after spending 2 euros on printing/stamps, but more importantly, probably about 4 hours of effort, my absentee ballot should be going in, as well as my back-up, Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot. I am hoping that one of these votes will be counted for me and all this effort pays off with a president who will actually try stop the war, boost the economy (make the dollar worth a bit more in Europe?), help me pay off college loans and such, and actually make our lives better, overall.

Cordoba! Saturday, October 11th through Sunday, October 12th

Finally, I have some free time to blog about my trip to Cordoba (I was vigorously working on a presentation for class the last few days). So Hannah and I got on a bus at the bus station at 9am to head to Cordoba. At first, the ride was pretty smooth and it was easy to sleep for a bit. However, the road turns really windy and goes through some beautiful landscape and mountains after a couple hours, which makes it harder to stay asleep (and not be a little carsick).

After a break during the 5 hour bus ride, we finally got to Cordoba! The weather was a bit bad, but luckily, as soon as we got there, the rain stopped so that was pretty lucky. We asked the bus driver how long it would walk to get to our hostel instead of taking the bus, and he said about half an hour, so we just decided to walk and save that 1 euro and combine getting to our hostel and discovering the town. So although we had maps in our "guidebooks" and knew the general direction, it was a bit of an adventure figuring out where exactly we were especially because many narrow little streets aren't on the map, but walking through the gorgeous antique streets was really fun and we made it there safely and in a short amount of time.

Our hostel was very nice, connected to a little cafe (where we would get a free breakfast) and with the most helpful staff. In fact, they were really surprised that we were able to get a room in such a short amount of time because the phones were going off the hook for people looking for a place to stay in Cordoba. They gave us a map and helped us figure where the best sights are. After settling in our room, we headed off towards the "Mezquita", the largest Mosque in all of Spain (built when the moors made it their capital hundreds of years ago). Since it costs 8e to get in, people say that it's not worth that cost, and postcards seem to have a ton of pictures of the inside anyways, we just absorbed the essence from the gardens outside of it.

After Mezquita, we walked around a bit but since it was "siesta time" (in Spain, from about 2:30-5:30, other than restaurants, everything is closed for a giant lunch/nap break). So we headed back to the hostel and joined nap time. Right around this time, I started seeing tons of people in the streets with suitcases and backpacks, and the person at hostel front desk constantly telling every other person that walks in that they are full. It was evident that tons of people were thinking they could come to Cordoba without hotel/hostel reservations and easily find one, but they were just as wrong as we were. At that point, I felt soo lucky to have found a place to sleep in Cordoba that night that it didn't even matter how tiny the bathroom was. Finally, we went to the famous bridge, Puente Romano (built originally by Romans but very remodeled now) at night to take some night pictures. I think they turned out well. Afterwards, we went out to a jazz cafe and had some delicious drinks, but called a pretty early night around midnight.

The next day, we had a few more sites to see, such as the Alcazar de los Reyes, which is a castle and some gardens,both gorgeous and fullll of tourists. We also walked across Puente Romano some more and explored the other side. We relaxed a bit in a park and some friendly people with adorable dogs chatted with us (I have come to terms with my addiction to petting cute dogs and craving "zumo" or juice--although natural orange is always the best kind). After a mediocre lunch, Hannah and I trekked back through town (very efficiently this time) to the bus station, all the while having a VERY interesting debate about "feminism" vs. "feminists", a recent topic in class. The bus ride back was fairly smooth; I tried to sleep a bit but after a rest stop, we picked up our conversation and were back in Madrid before we knew it. It was all in all a great experience, and you should check out all the pictures of Cordoba, and more of Spain by looking at
My Picasa Albums
Please keep the comments coming!!! Will update about Madrid very soon!
Love,
Jojo

Pre-aventura a Cordoba...

So my friend from the Carleton program and I agreed upon a short weekend adventure to Cordoba (the northern city of the southernmost province, Andalucia, which also has Granada and Sevilla). We then went to the station on Thursday to buy bus tickets (25e roundtrip) and were pretty set to go. We came back and started to casually email a couple cheap hostels for rooms. All of a sudden, we began to realize that all the rooms to the cheap hostels were taken, which was a bit odd and annoying, and I emailed them to let them know I already have tickets and to notify me of any cancellations. We started to enquire about more and more expensive hotels, and everything (under 100e) was taken! Literally, I called over 15 places and they all told me that they were "completo" or full for the ONE Saturday night we'd be there. The logic that one receptionist told me was that Monday is a holiday, and thus, everyone is traveling...but everyone to Cordoba? Maybe we'll discover some giant fiesta or festival going on. Anyways, we began to freak out a bit, because with tickets already bought, but no desire to pay 50+e each for a hotel/hostel, we started asking about couch surfing and I was considering tent options...no dice on anything. Finally, at around 4pm on Friday when we were ready to scrap the trip altogether, I received an email from one of the higher priced (25e per person/night) but still pretty cheap hostel (they range from 20-40e usually; under 20e is pretty lucky) that a room with 2 individual beds had freed up and they were waiting for us to confirm it!!! I called them right away and booked the room and so I'm leaving for Andalucia in about an hour and half (so I'll head to bus station right about now). Wish us luck, and pray for us that those predicted PM showers won't come!!!
More about our trip soon!

PS We found out there is a HUGE concert going on in Cordoba tonight. And the weather is amazing and it is FILLED with tourists. Longer update about our trip soon!

Castilla...Friday, October 3rd

So I am writing this to you from a gorgeous hotel (Hotel TRYP) in Salamanca, while the rest of the group is out and about on a Friday night and I'm just hoping I feel better by tomorrow. I have a bit of a head cold, and it isn't too bad, but I just don't want it to get any worse because it's just awful to be sick in a foreign country (and city, nonetheless!).

Our trip to Castilla has been very exciting so far. Yesterday early morning, we went from to Valladolid (via coach bus; that is how we are doing all of our travels these few days), a gorgeous little city about 2 hours north west (?) of Madrid.

After dropping our bags off at our hostel, we first went to the "Museo Oriental" with tons of objects and art pieces from Asia, with a tour guide that explained the diligence that went behind ever piece. We toured the town a bit more and then went our separate ways for some Spanish "tapas".

We reconvened afterward to go to the Christopher Columbus Museum, because Valladolid was the last town he lived in before passing away. The museum was very modern and although it's not the most interesting information ever, it was very interactive and engaging. After that, we walked all around the town and saw a ton of stuff, but I think we we are all a bit lethargic at this time. After some cafe (or "zumo de naranja"=orange juice) for me, we met at the hostel at 8pm to go to a pueblo for dinner.

Last night, some students took a bit of a nap and woke up at 2:30 am to watch the VP debates. I wanted to but at 2:30 am when my alarm went off, I decided it'd be best for my health to just sleep some more. In the morning I felt really great when finding some breakfast with my roommate and it definitely was the best decision at that time.

The dinner was really good. Finally, we got some pretty tasty, authentic, Spanish food, with wine and sausage and tortilla (potato and egg dish). I loved my "arroz con leche" (rice with milk) dessert; it was the perfect sweetness and temperature.

This morning, we started off by going to a castle! It was in a rural area and it amazing and the plateau looks a bit like Nebraska. We next went to "Villa de Libro", an extremely rural pueblo, to visit a professor at St. Olaf who knows a lot about some antique and modern musical instruments in Spain. We ate a really delicious lunch in this tiny town, with rabbit and pork chops (yum). This town really felt like there was absolutely no one around (although we saw a couple people here and there). It was so calm and so completely different than Madrid, and I think a lot of us really enjoyed this change of pace.

After that, we went to the monestary of this town, another church in another town, and honestly, the images of Jesus Christ and GIANT churches in rural Spain are kind of melding together and floating around in my head. Being sick probably didn't help either. I think I'm forgetting a couple things, but basically, we got quite the taste of rural and religious Spain.

We arrived at Salamanca around 8pm and came to our hotel rooms. I chatted with people a bit before everyone decided to go out and I decided to try to connect to some free internet with my roommate's computer (thank you!) and wait for my NyQuil to kick in (which it's doing right about now).

I just finished watching a good chunk of the debates on youtube while writing this out. Joe Biden spoke better than I thought he would, although so did Sarah Palin (grr). I'm thanking god for this free wireless internet and hoping all of you are doing okay. Keep in touch, and I will post like, HUNDREDS of photos that go along with this post on Sunday night/Monday. Until then, keep in touch.

Much love,
Jojo