Explanation:

The following 4 posts are in order of convenience rather than actuality. You can read the introduction note, then scroll down to read about my most recent excursions in the order that they occurred: Madrid, Venice,

That's all.

More about Salamanca Observations to come in a few days.

Home Again: And now, An account of the last week

9 Days of traveling, 2 countries, 8 cities delved into.

At the beginning there was a big group, but by Sunday evening it was cut down to me and my two house mates: Esther and Kelley.

General Musings:
I've been in Europe for a month now, and I think I've finally gotten straight the explorer's mentality. You can always go in with a plan: I certainly had my whole trip pla

nned out, itinerary and all.

However, I've learned that plan

s change incredibly and that it is important to be able to be flexible, to think on the spot, and to be spontaneous occasionally. This breaking-free-from-the-plan can be intentional or not, but regardless, there are serious benefits to simply showing up to a city and simply looking around. This is method worked beautifully in Madrid and in Venice. In my wanderings, I found impromptu musical performances, met some interesting people, and felt as if I were more independent for discovering the cities' wondrous secrets on my own in lieu of being told by a guide.

This attitude, however backfired a bit in Milan when we showed up in the city far after the major museums closed. I was very disappointed, but also could have easily remedied the matter if I had been aggressive about getting to Milan earlier rather than sleeping in. Such is life.

General Musings, Continued: Katherine's List of Musts Upon First Arriving in New Destination

1) Orientate. Get a Map, usually found at the nearest bus station, train station, or Hotel. In the last week, I made use of all of these resources.

2) Determine or Find where you are going to stay: (Map helps.) If you are only meandering through the city for the day, find a locker for you baggage. Museums and Bus stations have baggage checks, generally; Venice was the only city which I went into not knowing where I was going to sleep that night. Matters were made worse by the fact that I arrived at Midnight far away from any potentially cheap hostel. Luckily I had done some research

3). Determine Best Means to travel: Madrid, Milan, and London (4 weeks ago i visited), all have very cheap metro systems. In Madrid and London I did not take full advantage of them, but in Milan I figured out the trick and managed to make full use of the system.

Walking, however, is also very beneficial in that it allows you the freedom of exploration and spontaneity; In Madrid and London (And in Salamanca, Granada, Seville for that matter) I walked everywhere and by the end of the day was completely exhausted. I'm sure there is a happy medium between the two.

4). Look For Cheaper Restaurants Throughout the Whole day: And mark them on your map. It's way too easy to forget exactly where that one cheap restaurant was, and in the process of looking for it, you look over all the other moderately cheap restaurants until you are so tired of looking for a place to eat

that you settle for something far more expensive; I did this everywhere.

5) Decide What Sort of Tourist You Want to Be: The Stereotypical tourist follows the map legends and gets a day full of only the best sights. The drawback, I find, is that there are far too many people everywhere and you tend to hang around tourist traps and expensive-ish restaurants that seem reasonably priced until you find something cheaper 5 blocks away. However, there is of course a reason for the people. A more artistic/historic tourist sticks to the big sights, but probably hits some that are not as popular; in Madrid we evaded the Prada and hit the less popular museums. (we go to the Prada in October with AIFS). The Vagabond Tourist of course just wanders aimlessly, and does what is most convenient for the moment; we had to be this kind out of financial necessity. The cheaper everything was farther away from touristy areas, and so we basically just made do with the new sights in our areas, albeit it being less spectacular. In Venice, for example, we stayed in a campsite 20 min. away from the water by bus. Vagabond tourism, however, is also less stressful and even relaxing. (See detailed day in Venice below).

6). Observe City's Quirks:

Examples: Madrid, Salamanca, and Valladolid have traffic signals that flash green before immediately turning red, while Milan has very very very long green lights before the yellow. Venice Taxi service was actually a fleet of motor boats. It took about an hour to realize the fact. Also, Museums in Milan have "Last admission" times before they actually close (Grr). Italy has a sunflower motif: On trashcans, napkins in restaurants, painted on buildings. Italy also has a pretty substantial cover charge upon entering restaurants. Madrid tries to get girls into its bars by offering them free drinks on the house in order to have them attract more business.

7). ON that note: Keep your eyes open for Unusual Events and Opportunities:

Entertainment geared towards locals can be free and more culturally enrichingt; In Seville we found that the museums were hosting free concerts and plays all night. In Venice th

ere were chamber music rotations around the city plaza. In Milan there was a professional fashion show we got to watch. Free entertainment= somehow more rewarding.

Soon To Come (one at a time): Individual Entires

Cordoba

Madrid

Venice

Milan

La Mancha

Seville

Granada Alhambra

Or you can just scroll down.

Or you can click on the side bar for my albums to view specific cities.

Madrid

Sunday the 20th of September:

We arrived in Madrid via AIFS Bus and got dropped off in the city center. I was in Madrid for about 30 minutes when we flew in 4 weeks ago from London, but not the actual city part.

We arrived with only an address of our reserved hostel, and immediately went in search of a map. I felt as if we were on.. what's that show called? Oh yeah. "the Amazing Race" in that we were also dropped off with 3 others from our AIFS group who were staying in a different hotel, flying to a different city. Anyway, we separated into two directions, piled with our luggage (one bulging backpack a piece), and sort of sped walked in search of information. The METRO failed us, but the Mall Tourism Office did not.

We headed off in the direction Kelley told us was correct, and about 20 minutes later discovered it was the wrong direction. (This is when I established a new group rule: always double check each other's instincts). We were all very toasty and exhausted and overwhelmed at the end of our search.

We found our hostel, located to the left of a star bucks building in a sort of narrow building three stories up. After buzzing in to open the door, we ascended the millions of stairs, panting, regretting that we were afraid of the sketchy elevator.

It was my first independent Hostel experience. I was a bit aprehensive, I must admit, especially when I saw how small the facility was. It was an interesting process, passports required at the desk, only cash accepted, shared bathroom and kitchen. Our room slept about 14 people and was co-ed. We put our things in a locker, at the expense of 2 Euro. (Luckily my laptop Quodlibet was small enough to fit in it, aww).

Picture of different kinds of moneys, displayed on Hostel wall:

The first night, we went out to dinner (mexican food! we finally found some! it was awful! but it somewhat sated our craving. We found the restaurant serendipitously because we decided to follow an accordian player around the city in case he was going to a gig. He lead us to a McDonalds where he played at people until they paid him to go away. We didn't want to go to McDonalds, but there was the Mexican restaurant right next door, and Kelley was very disappointed in the spiciness scale of her food. (not at all spicey.)

Also, we wanted to go see an opera, but no tickets were available. There was, however, a Spanish version of Spamalot... which we almost saw. We decided the puns wouldn't be funny enough in Spanish.

.

After a late night out (getting back around 3am.... ugh.. ) we didn't really sleep in. We were up for our included "breakfast" consisting of Toast and coffee. Spainiards. Sigh. There was a Turkish man in the Hostel too.. (amongst many others) and I found him in the kitchen looking through the fridge. I said "hola" not knowing he was Turkishand he looked at me and said ... "I am looking for the Cheese." Except "cheese" was pronounced "ches" and I was very confused, because I thought he didn't know english and so i only spoke Spanish at him until it was figured out that he did, in fact, know English. He is looking to get a job in New York eventually (or did I make that up? so many new people ...) and he is going to send me his research he's done in foreign studies (maybe).

Anyway, in Madrid, we were trying to be historical tourists and go to museums but they were all closed because it was Monday. (ughh. poor planning!). So we went to this lovely lovely park, called "Parque de Retiro" i think, and we went in a boat around the lake.

That day, we also discovered that we would probably not make our train trip to Venice, and we discovered that there was no way to refund and rebuy. I was all for trying to get a later ticket, but it was eventually decided that it would be too expensive, so we CANCELLED all of our hostel reservations with the new plan that we would play everything by ear. IF we could BY THE SMALLEST CHANCE make our train ride (which was unlikely because we had 1 hour 20 minutes to get off the plane, go through boarder check, get on a bus that leaves every 20 minutes which takes an hour to get to the station.... ) then we would play it by ear. As soon as we knew for certain that we would not make it to Venice (Ie, our flight being delayed, us getting to the airport to find that we missed the first bus to leave...) then we would directly make reservations in a place in Milan.

Stress levels and Disappointment levels were very high, and we needed some serious down time. So I decided to go back to the park to read, and Kelley and Ester decided to go shopping. Kelley and Esther got separated while shopping, and didn't make it to the meeting spot until 45 minutes after they said they would. I was very worried and was only consoled by the fact that there were very charming British people to talk to. (i think i wrote about this already.)

Anyway, this is where I waited :( also in the Park)

That night, we went out for dinner in a Turkish Restaurant and I ate hummus and bread. It was glorious. Then on the way back, I had my wallet stolen out of my pocket, immediately after I had taken it out to give some money to a cellist playing on the street. -__-. Panic ensued, of course, but I dealt with it in such a way that I was called "admirable" by my friends. It mostly involved me stealing Esther's phone, calling my parents so that they could cancel my credit card and forward me money via Western Union. I was up until 3 in the morning that night as well, even though we fully intended to go to sleep early that day. Also, I was still voiceless.. not the best of days.

The next morning, I went in search of the Western Union bank... walked about 6 blocks to the addressed building and walked up 5 stories only to find (after a lot of awkward Spanish) that it had moved to an unknown place. -__-. So I went next door to an exchange place to get cash from my travelors checks, just so I could pay for food in Italy in case I couldn't find a WU. It was a dreadfully stressful morning, in that I knew I had to figure things out before my 4:00 flight to Italy. Luckily we had an afternoon flight! After I had given up and started walking back to the Hostel to check out and look online for a WU, I found one only a block away from our Hostel. Silly me. It all worked out, (thank you padres.)

In the afternoon we went to the not-the-prada museum and we sped walked throughout the 3 stories of art. I liked the Flemish portraits the best. I was surprised by this fact.

We then METROd to the airport (were surprised to find out how cheap the tickets were, cursing the hours and hours spent walking across town) and had 3 hours to spare in the airport.

Es todo para Madrid :P

PHOTO ALBUM UPDATED: Access HERE or go to the right of the page and find it amongst other albums.

Venice

Venezia: September 22-24

Our adventure to Venice, as hinted at in my Madrid post, was indeed very stressful. The day before our trip we had fully believed that it wasn't going to happen, but we still had our train ticket for a 8:25 pm departure from Milano Central to Venezia station if we happened to be at the station in time.

Here were all the things that had to happen to enable us to make our train:

1) Our 30 Euro RyanAir flight to Venice had to not be delayed. (Cheap=unreliable??)

---> If it was, in fact, delayed, we agreed then and there to just not even try to get to Milan in time and instead go in the opposite direction to Bergamon (Spelling?) where we would enjoy the Italian countryside.

2) We would have to get seats in the front of the plane because we had 20 minutes to get to our bus

3) We would have to get off the plane and make it through passport stuff in under 20 minutes

4) The bus would have to leave at exactly 7:20 to make the advertised hour-long-50-km journey from airport to milano central (one stop in between.)

5) The bus would have to not get stuck in traffic and make it in that time frame

6) Given that we get to the station on time, we'd have to be able to navigate ourselves to our platform in 5 minutes.

7) The train might have to leave a bit late

8) Our Printed online tickets would suffice as proper evidence of payment- we were not sure of this.

Here is what happened:

-Our flight was not delayed

-We sat it the front-most seats

-Our flight got in 15 minutes early

-There was no passport check and we made it to the bus terminal in 3 minutes

-There was an unexpected early bus that left at 7:00 instead of 7:25

-We were ecstatic on the bus Evidence of this excitement

-We got on the train with our tickets and were off

[Side note about plane: I was so content about getting front seats and was feeling very optimistic. And I was charmed by the Mozart (Eine Kleine Nachtmusik) playing in the background very elegantly, accentuated by the Irish-accented-voice-overs telling me how great RyanAir traveling is. However, after settling happily in my seat, I noticed that they only played section I of the piece over, and over and over and over and over and over and over. I heard it about 30 times. It reminded me of that one part in the Douglas Adam's Restaurant at The End of The Universe in which the passengers on the plane are stuck on the grounded plane for 900 years hearing the following message periodically: “Transtellar Cruise Lines would like to apologize to passengers for the continuing delay to this flight. We are currently awaiting the loading of our complement of small lemon-soaked paper napkins for your comfort, refreshment and hygiene during our journey. Meanwhile we thank you for your patience. The cabin crew will shortly be serving coffee and biscuits again.” ]

I wrote about our view upon exiting the station already, and i have pictoral evidence that does no justice to it. But really. Looking out from one end of the trainstation through the archway on the other end.... seeing a glassy surface of water sparkling with the reflection of the building lights and the lamposts, with little boats floating mildly down it.... just that one glimpse made the whole thing worth it.

Our night was hectic, scattered, and our we did things very inefficiently. Meandering from one end of the street to the other, over the same monstrous bridge about 10 times, talking in broken spanish to the italian, receiving answers in broken english, we finally gleaned the information we needed. All the while taking frantic pictures, trying to preserve the beauty that we were experiencing.

We paid too much for a taxi when we could have taken a bus had it not been 1 in the morning and had we actually known about them. We arrived at this hostel called "Camping Jolly!" which was actually a campsite, and we could have stayed in a tent for 12 Euros each but didn't have bedding so we rented a little "Bungalo" which consisted of two rooms, three beds, on bathroom, no towels. My solution to this problem was to use an extra bed sheet.

The man in charge of the campsite spoke no English. The Senegalese night guard spoke some English and French. It was a complicated process booking everything. However, we eventually were escorted by the Senagalese guard riding a bicycle. He stopped, however, midway to yell at some Americans who were playing music on their laptop while sitting at a picnic table.

Guard: *gestures with hand in downward sort of way* alto alto! too loud! turn it down!

Pompous American Boy: We did already

Guard: Too loud!

PAB: Alright, geeze.

Guard: It's not for me. *points to self* it's for them *gestures around* people are sleeping.

Then he proceeds to escort us all the while fuming and shaking his head, making sort of high-pitched-exasperated sigh. And when he finished showing us our little room, he added... "Don't play music loud." and we said "yeah, we know." and then "In Senegal, if you act like that..." and then he makes this sort of gesture that resembles hitting someone in the head with a bat. we assured him once more that we would not play our music loudly.

Anyway, the next day we decided to simply meander around the city with the idea that we would only consult our map if we wanted to get to a particular part. Venice has about 6-7 sections or rather... island groupings. I don't understand it. I guess they are like neighborhoods. It also has a taxi fleet of tugboats which will take passengers to different island groupings. We didn't go on one, mostly because I felt the deisel engine would ruin my romantic view.

We explored shops, which unfortunately all contained much of the same sort of tourist-trap items. There were a ridiculous amount of Paper/journal/letter stores. I thought about buying some fragile, expensive,writing paper but i decided I didn't have enough room in my suitecase. I also almost bought Travis a glass octopus (with five legs) but I concluded that I would probably break it or lose it by the end of the trip. (I bought myself a Venetian Blown-Glass Necklace.)

One of my favorite parts of Venice were these Chamber musicians who took turns playing a few pieces at a time around a large Plaza. I was amused that Ein Klein Nacht Musik was a part of one of the medleys. One of the Chamber groups was sort of an.. impromptu folky group consisting of instruments piano, accordion, bassist, some-other-stringed one. It was cool because they took requests and improvised their way through the song. And apparently most of the songs had words, because random Italians in the crowd started singing along and one woman actually was prompted to stand up and sing to the crowd. It was very enchanting.

Other things about Italy:

The people were gentle, and kind. They were always willing to help with directions and with other information and they did so with such a happy and bubbly sort of demeanor. I have a theory about it: To live in such a beautiful place, perhaps, induces a sort of relaxed and optimistic view about life. My host-brother, Jose, told me today that he thought Italia was "como una cuenta"... a story. I bet it helps.

mmm. Like.

I also ate Gelatto and it was glorious. (I might have mixed the Spanish name with the real name, don't know.)

I'm so glad I went. I'd recommend it to anyone. Seriously.

PHOTO ALBUM

(feel free to comment on this entry, any other entry, or any of the photos. ;) :) . )

Milan

Milan: September 24

Milan was at the end of the journey. I was absolutely exhausted. And very very sick. Over the week I had lost about 4 pounds just from walking, I had averaged about 4 hours of sleep, and still had no voice. Frustrated, tired, hungry, sore, and ill, exploring Milan thoroughly was not an option.

We arrived in Milan around 2pm (3 hour train from Venice put us in late).

We found the Metro station, bought a 24-hour pass to get around the city for 3 Euro (SO cheap!) and we Metrod to where we thought our booked hostel was. (We had booked it that morning online.. We didn't want to deal with confusing translation problems.)

Anyway. Our Hostel man was the kindest person ever ever. And spoke perfect English, and it was overwhelmingly welcoming. Our Hostel room was bizzare. Three beds, one sink, a bathroom down the hall. No towels. Of course. No extra sheets, either... in fact.. no sheets! ugh!

Not that it mattered- we had a 3:45 am wake up time, so our sleep was going to be non-existent.

We relaxed for about 15 minutes... washed up a bit. We then decided to go to the main touristy area.. with the Duro and everything. We got there... milled around aimlessly... tempers very very strained. I was still horribly sick and dead. We were hungry, dehydrated, and kelley was in need of a cash machine. An hour later we had found one, had found something snack on, and decided to tour the cathedral. I had to use Esther's shawl to cover my bare shoulders to be permitted into it. Here's a cool video of the Cathedral... albeit creepy ish: Here.

After the Cathedral we decided to tackle the list of museums we wanted to see. I really really wanted to see the Divinci Invention Museum but it was closed. As was the Astronomy Museum, as were all the others. At 4:30 pm. ugh. And "The Last Supper" required a reservation. Ugh again. There was one art museum open and it didn't look to spectacular on paper... but we searched for it anyway. After going not-the-most-direct-rout we found it and were turned away because we were not EU citizens. I was sure there was something we could do about it, but patience was thin and we didn't really care at that point. We instead took pictures in the foyer of the museum, which we pretended were artsy, but they weren't. Lol. Example. (I look kind of angry... it's hard to tell maybe if you don't know it ahead of time.)

I pouted for about an hour afterwards, and then decided that it would be best to get some coffee to ensure that I didn't collapse or something. (Very tired and dehydrated).

We stopped in a cafe... I ordered Tea AND coffee, which confused our bartender-ess. She thought I was paying for Esther's coffee and when I demonstrated to her that my throat was in fact made of death, she conceptualized the idea I needed lots of warm beverage. While zoning out drinking my beverage, I observed how annoyed she was with her fellow bartender. She kept arguing with him in Italian, being very exasperated, and once smacked him on the back of his head in a sort of patronizing way. He made eyecontact with me and seemed to plea for some sort of recognition that he was being abused. It was amusing.

Perked up a bit, we decided to go shopping afterwards. I found no clothing I liked. It's convenient that I am so picky. So far in all of my traveling in the past month I've bought a necklace and a purple dress. Not bad.

We left shopping early because Kelley wanted to ensure that we would get a good spot to view the fashion show that was going to take place in the main plaza. (This was the only thing that seemed to be going for us... this fashion show. We had no idea of its occuring until we got off the METRO and saw the stage.)

After waiting and standing for over an hour, the show began and it was very interesting. I have lots of videos on my Milan Picture Album. They utilized dancing, singing, weird weird weird instruments, lighting effects, etc. Very entertaining, and I suppose a good exhibition of Modern Milan. (Fashion capital of the world, or something.)

I was disappointed that I didn't get to experience the artistic/historic parts of the city, but I was assured that I wasn't missing out on too much. Sigh.

Dinner was lovely. We found a relatively fancy, yet inexpensive, restaurant in another part of the city (called 'Little Venice') and I ate yummy pizza and drank yummy wine.

Around 1:00 am we finally made it to our Hostel (After navigating 3 METRO lines, and walking about 40 minutes) I took a shower, and laid on my bed in my clothes I was going to wear on our trip back. I didn't have a blanket and only slept because I simply had to. (Dramatic, I apologize.)

I was the first to wake up in the morning (as always ..I just get so insomniac when I travel!) and I roused everyone and encouraged them to hurry. We barely made it to our 4:30 bus. Actually, I think we missed it and took a later one. Ah! don't remember. But while rushing to the bus stop (walking more than a half hour in the middle of Milan in the early early morning... ) We found a very nice Italian who knew exactly where the bus was and he helped us get there. He apparently lived in New York for about a year, and might move back. He has two houses in Italy, and was on his way to a flight to... ah, well I don't even know. But I loved his kindness.

Bus to Airport. (I slept and coughed.) Boarded Airplane (After hearing Eine Kleine Nachtmusik section I about 4 times in a row, I dozed off and woke up to find that I was in the air. Completely slept through takeoff. Ridiculous.) Airport Shuttle To Bus Stop in Valladolid, Spain. Bus in Valladolid to Salamanca.

Long Long Long Day. We arrived in Salamanca at 1:00 pm ish and I didn't take a nap because i was just .... wired.

It was fun though.

<3

Picture Album!!

Better day

Best day.
After all of my worries and after all of our traveling going perfectly yesterday....
We made it to Venice. Walking out of the train station, deleriously, cautiously, I saw the water and the buildings and became immediately enchanted. (despite the fact that it was midnight and we had absolutely no idea where we were going to sleep.)
(we had a few hostel names and an address, but that was all.)

We wandered the streets, asking questions to people who might have known englsh. Everyone was so kind and beautiful. Upon first arriving, while looking for a map, I was incredibly overwhelmed with trying to orientate myself to the immediate cultural differences. "how d0es this city tick, and how do I get around... "... it took about a half an hour to understand (after looking at a map) that the taxis are actually the boats that I passed earlier. I guess it makes sense, but I hadnt thought about it before. (Btw, no apostraphes are being used because i cannot figure out this keyboard...)

We are exploring all day today, sleeping at the hostel that we found fairly easily with the aid of a taxi, and then we are catching a train back to milan or some other place close to the airport.

I love Italy.

(More than spain, but shhh. )

GAHHHH EVERYTHING IS CONFUSING G:LKJSF

ok. so. I don't even know where to big.

I'm in Madrid right now, sitting on a wooden floor in the middle of my youth hostel dorm filled with 12 beds of which all were full last night and 5 are full now.

Tomorrow: Milan.

Yesterday: Arrived in Madrid sort of.... awesomely. We got of the AIFS bus (Kelley, Esther and I) and sort of looked around at our surroundings and said "Great. now where are we?" . We found a map, orientated ourselves... looking for our booked hostel... started walking and then after about 20 minutes decided we were going the wrong way. We found our hostel, were pleasanlty surprised at its quaintness and we promptly left it to go find an interenet cafe at which we might (Finally!) print boarding passes for Milan.

No printer. It was fine, though. We'd do it the next day. (Well, I had all my stuff print out. I was organized). So we decided to collectively, instead, rebook our train from Milan to Venice because we only had 90 minutes to leave the plane and get on the train with a 50 km trip in between. Not exchangeable. a;sldkfja;sdlkfj. Ran out of internet time, we'd talk about it and the risks and do it the next day.

Good night out, except, i lost my voice in the process. It's unhappy that it's not considered rude to say, blow smoke in someone's face. Anyway, from Smoke and a previous flu bug I caught in Granada, I became voiceless and am currently in the same state.

MONDAY: (Today)

Tried to go to museums. All were closed. Museums close on mondays, i guess.

So we went to this park. a beautiful park. Full of trees, and fountains and a LAKE and a Crystal Palace! and more!

We rented a paddle boat (With rowing oars, not with peddles) and we chased ducks. (Pictures to come eventually, I promise.)

And later we tried the internet again, and we realized we can't refund our train ticket at all, so we have to be out 14 Euros if we can't get to the station in time, so we decided to try and make it on time (without the expensive taxi) but we decided to cancel all of our reservations in case we don't make it. Saves 50 euro, at least.

So now we are in Limbo. Will we make the train? How much are we willing to spend in order to mkae it? Where will we stay if we make it, where will we stay if we don't?

We have no answers. it's almost 3am where I am and i am looking up possibilities.

But there is more that ensued. My salad had anchovies on it. :(. and then the astronomy observatory was closed. I ate homus for dinner! it was delicious, and the we found a place to print Esther's boarding pass (Finally!!) but then I got pick pocketed after giving a Cellist some money because i liked his playing. (5 others gave the cellist money after i set the example. 1 other must have seen the fact that i had a wallet).

So now i am out 20 Euro, 1 traveler's check, 20 USD, 1 liscence, 1 Salamanca ID card and 1 ATM.

I"m leaving at 1pm tomorrow to go to the airport.

:) !! (sarcasm).

Good things:
At Hostels there are all sorts of people. I met a guy from Istanbul, one from Brazil, one from El Salvador. The one from Turkey exchanged emails with me, and he's going to send me some sort of information regarding my major.

Also, while waiting for Esther and Kelley at our designated meeting spot (They were 30 minutes late, another thing that might add to the stress of the day!!), I spoke with 2 british men about Swans and the California Governor. Apparently, all the swans in England are owned by the Queen.

I should sleep. I have a long day tomorrow. It seems my new bedtime is once again 3 am .

Things i need to further blog about:

1) Post Pictures of the Royal Palace in Seville as well as pictures of the epic epic epic park.

2) Post Pictures of the Alhambra in Granada (Beautiful architecture) (1300s) (Columbus!)

3) Post Pictures of the Windmills of Don Quixote

4) Write about Christopher Columbus's Coffin experience

Cordoba

I spent the last 2 days in Seville and Cordoba Spain.

The six hour drive through spain looked remarkably

like california vistas... some entertaining

pictures for you: click to

enlarge!!

In Cordoba we toured a previously-Muslim Mosque which had been

converted in to a Catholic Cathedral. (go figure.) Apparently, once-upon

-a-time ago, all three of the

monotheist religions lived quite peacefully

together until politics

interfered and all the Jewish people...sort...of.... Immigrated. I Expected

them to say something

more about The Spanish Inquisition, but it was

sort of understated. hmmm.Anyway, I took an absurd number of photos of the Mosque and all of its hundreds and hundreds of pillars.. and of the

ceiling and the wall that points to Mecca and of the open doorways. It was beautiful. There were so many arches, i couldn't keep track.

I will probably upload my photos onto Google from here but not from Seville unitl after I get

them from my friends' computers.

Anyway, here are a few from Cordoba: feel free to click on them to see the full shots.

Pillars and Arches:

Clearly Catholic:

TRAVELING !!!!!

My Itenerary From September 17 (Thursday) - September 25 (Friday):

Including (but not limited to): Cordoba, Sevilla, Granada, La Mancha, Madrid, MILAN, VENICE!

Implications: I'm going to be away from my computer for over a week starting Thursday, unles

s I decide to bring it along (which is unlikely.)

Thursday, September 17

Departing Salamanca at 7:15 A.M. (Gross) and taking a bus from Salamanca to Cordoba to Sevilla.

In Cordoba we will visit the

Mezquita de Cordoba built in 784!! And we will tour the city before busing to Sevilla.We spend the night in Sevilla, free to roam around the city as we like.

Friday, September 18

We spend the day and another night in Sevilla. (Attractions in Sevilla incl

ude Barrio de Santa Cruz,

the Catedral, and the Plaza de Espania.

This is of the Catedral.

Saturday, September 19:

We travel to Granada leaving ridiculously early in the morning. In the evening in Granada, we will go to La Alhambra: the hill in Granada/Fortress atop the hill. We will also probably go to a Flamenco show, and spend the night

in Granada.

Sunday, September 20:

Granada to Madrid. But on the way: La Mancha! Windmills!!!!!!!!! In Madrid, the bus will drop Kelley, Esther and I off on our own. We will stay in

Madrid Sunday night-Tuesday morning, giving us almost 2 full days to explore the city. We are staying in a youth hostel that costs less than 40 dollars for both nights.

Monday, September 21:

We are hoping to go to a few museums, as well as the gardens. I'm hoping to go to the palace grounds. Lots of pictures will be taken, i am sure. Here is a picture of the We Who are Going (Esther, Kelley and I.)

Tuesday, September 22:

FLYING TO ITALY!!!!!!!!!!!! 4:40 flight to Milan. From Milan, we are hoping to hop right on a train that will take us to VENICE. We will then spend the night in Venice and be entirely content.

Wednesday, September 23: VENICE!!!!!!!!!

Thursday, September 24:

Early (6 am) trip to Milan Where we and then the entire day in Milan.

Friday, September 25

Milan Flight at 7:30 am Arriving at 9:30 in Vallidolid, Spain.

After a day of traveling in Valladolid we'll bus back to Salamanca (in time for dinner perhaps.)

Es Todo.

Brief Update

ow that the festivals (Ferrias) have died down, I find myself in need of an after-cenar hobby. Most people go out dancing, go out to the bars (because that's really all there is in Salamanca and, once again, they enjoy the 16 year drinking age) but despite these activities tend to be pricey and tiring. Dancing, I suppose, is free, but it also comes with the additional smoke-filled room. I don't like going to sleep with smokey hair and skin.

This evening I ventured on my own, around 10:00, to a cafe and ordered tea and read a very long letter. It was very enjoyable and I was able to

have several conversations in Spanish with my waiter, including a very awkward one in which I told him he didn't need to open the door for me as I made my way outside with tea and teacup, but really I did need him to open the door because I was enitrely handicapped.

I like journaling, and I spent a bit of time yesterday in the University Library Courtyard (hogwarts) writing and it was also very pleasant. I was interrupted by a friend's phone call and then was drug around the city going to shops. This is another thing

people do here: shop. shop. And they aren't even at unique Spanish shops (I need to find more of these..) they are name-brand-expensive-clothing-shops. I've only bought one dress for what turned out to be 30 American Dollars by the end of it. It was a fairly good deal, and is a pretty dress.

Anyway, I am trying to not necessarily detatch myself from the Americans here, but certainly try and explore on my own more. I am sometimes introverted and don't really have an impulse to look at the pretty fashionable items of apperal in the various tiendas.

This isn't brief, per se.

Right now I am in my room, it's almost midnight here, I have my last day of school tomorrow and on Thursday I embark on a week-long-journey to the south. I will post my itenerary after this.

That's all for now. My photograph for today is the majority of my niche here. Fr

om left to right: Sasha, Kelley (House mate), Me, Janet, Arecelie (Spelling is off, I think.)

Festival Activites

This week in Salamanca people have been celebrating the Ferrias, which means that there are two weeks of festival. There are concerts every night, dance shows, street acts, cassettas open on the streets (which are mini bars that serve drinks and tapas). There are literally hundreds of people roaming around.

I took a brief video of some of the simple street action... here are some links to the videos:

(They are integrated in my photo album, so you can view more

. However, I will include links in this entry to specific photos and videos in it, so I'd recomend reading this to get the story behind most of them.)

Video of People Dancing in the Plaza (somewhat spontaneously)

Video Exemplifying the Outrageous Amount of People in the Street

I went to several concerts this week, including a Celtic/Spanish band called La Bandina). It included an electric bagpipe along with trombone, soprao sax, bongo drums, trumpet, and acordian. It was very entertaining. Here is some amusing footage of them dancing on the Stage set up in the Plaza...

Video One: Acordian Dance

Video Two: Cool Song

I also went on lots of walks, and found the Roman Bridge, (Puenta Romana? no se.) I took lots of pictures in and around it, and also included it on my run that I took last Tuesday.

I also attended a Flamenco concert which yeilded lots of guitar music and dancing. There were far too many people in front of me, and even more pushing me out of the way so they could get a better look. I was a bit peeved and went on a mild internal rant about how rudeness and inconscientiousness might be a cultural universal sometimes. (The group of teenagers who inspired this thought process also were smoking in a densely packed area. My roommate has a scar from a cigarette burn from a situation like this one. sigh.)

Anyway: Guitar Music Here:

And now it is the weekend and I have tests on Monday.

This evening I am going to interview to see if I can get a job (!!) teaching elementary children English. We'll see if I need a visa for this.

Es Todo.

Weekend

This weekend was quite nice. I finally slept, (finally finally finally) ... Saturday until 2 in the afternoon (about 10 hours of sleep) and today until 11:00 in the morning. Last night, however, my method of falling asleep backfired as I got hooked on the book-on-tape I was listening to. (Persuasion, by Jane Austen).

Apparently the Spainiard's national bar drink-of-choice is only a Sangria if you are a tourist in Spain. In Spain, they drink something called Cali-mocha which turns out to be half red-wine (Vino Tinto) and half cocacola. Absolutely bizarre.

Last night I went dancing in a club with many of the AIFS group that I had not previously comraderated with, and it was pretty fun. I just don't want to stay out late *Every-Single-Night* as they do. The night before, I went with my usual group of friends to a Salsa bar and spent about 2 hours dancing the Salsa with random Spaniards who figured out that they can get any American girl to dance with them if they actually know how to teach and lead. They take full advantaged of our romantasized ideals of Spainish dancing. (nevermind the fact that the Salsa is not even a Spanish dance!)

Today I'm planning to go explore some of the parks that are nothing compared to our parks. I will either find a spot to read or study grammer. Apparently the grading system here is fairly harsh, in that students aspire to get Cs.

Also, I'm a bit sick. My throat is still hoarse and I am conjested. If this is Swine Flu, then it's not a harsh case. I've had it for 3 days now, and I feel a bit better.

Finally my first album

Is HERE

I'm very tired. I should learn how to sleep. I'm probably not going out much tonight.

RESULTADOS

So I took an exam today and i tested into Intermediate Spanish for orientation, which is a pleasant sort of result. I was ready for Beginning Spanish.

So Tomorrow I go to my first class at 9:00 am (midnight your time... odd) and then am in class for 5 hours. I do this for two weeks.

I'm getting much better and speaking, though. I finally talked to my host padre (and gave him his wine topper gift which was v. appropriate since he owns a bar...) and we spoke a bit and he said that I speak very well for only have taken Spanish for 1 year.

I'm still working on photo albums. I have taken lots of pictures, all of the same thing. I might do one of people and one of pretty buildings.

Something I learned today was that Salamanca is a huge breeding gro

und for Cranes. Here is a photograph of a crane nest atop of one of the towers

Andanother picture of cranenest and crane.

Quck list of odd things in Salamanca

It has to be brief because I need to sleep before my test tomorrow.

(Not sure what time it really is... here, i still don't have a clock.)

1. Not allowed to be barefoot in the house ever ever. not even while walking to the shower. i don't like this rule.

2. No feet on table, couch, chairs, etc. It's very rude.

3. In Salamanca, they don't assign homework. Professors find homework "childish" and patronizing. Why should the students need to be forced to do assignments when they can learn on their own?

4. Breakfast (desayuno) is usually fairly late in the morning and it consists of some sort of bread and cofee.

5. Almuezar (it has another name tooo...) is the main meal of the day and it's in early afternoon. about 2:30

6. In the late afternoon (to my host mother late afternoon = 7:30) you can have a snack.

7. Supper (Cena) is at like.. 9 and it's supposedly smaller.

8. People bring their children on walks at like 11 at night. It's quite interesting

9. The cathedraels are beautiful. One day i'll do them justice by taking a decent picture or two.

10. It's common practice to take a stroll around 7 in the afternoon (lol)... the streets ar

e packed at this time and everyone is out and about

11. However, before the stroll and after the big meal, it's nap time. It's not safe to go out by yourself in the hours of 3-5 pm ish because the city is empty

12. However you can go out at 11pm-1am. that's safe.

sigh.

I should sleep. Ihave my initial exam tomorrow. I'm not studying, because I really don't know what i should study for. Verbs, berhaps? Maybe some vocabulary? or perhpas sleep is best.

And the picture is a street at night, all light up and pretty.