Escuela

I'm in school now. Well, I'm off now for the weekend (Fridays have no school!) and am sleepily dragging myself out to be sociable. Today was productiveish.

Here's my school Schedule/Classes I am taking:

Monday:

11:00-1:00 Salamanca time:

Literature

In which we, I suppose, learn the history of Spanish literature starting in year 1000. Lots of Arabic right now, translated for us into Spanish. The whole thing is in Spanish so it's a bit confusing. My professor has a very soothing voice, and it's a very sleepy sort of class.

7:30-9:30 pm

Spanish Cinema

In which we watch Spanish movies and discuss, in Spanish, their historical significance. I suppose we'll also study about technique. Woo, new jargon.

Tuesday

11:00-1:00

Spanish Grammar

One class today. I like Thursdays.

Wednesday

9:00-11:00

Translation

Taught in English and Spanish... in that we are translating English texts into Spanish and are learning about Grammar

11:00-1:00

Grammar

4:30-6:30

European Union

This one is in English. We are learning about the function and processes of the European Union and the politics and economics incorporated. It's also a class that encourages us to read the news and keep up with things.

Only 6 hours of class on Wednesdays. Hmm.

Thursdays

9:00-11:00

Translation

11:00-1:00

Literature

4:30-6:30

European Union

7:30-9:30

Spanish Cinema

Ugh. 8 hours of class.

Friday

no school!

Not too bad.

I'm also planning a trip to Rome, for November 19-22. So far, if we get all of our bookings right, we only are going to spend 150 dollars per person for flights, board, buses, and more buses. Includes: 2 nights in hostel, flight there and back, bus ride to Madrid and Back to Salamanca, buses to and from airport.

Not too shabby. Very excited.

I'm also trying to plan a weekend trip to Paris.

:-)!!!!

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. )