Promises To Keep

Ugh, I'm neglecting this.

First of all, I think i somehow did something which emails some of you whenever I post. If you are getting this as an email, don't be confused i'm not just sending it to you. I don't know how to fix this yet, but I will try to eventually.

Secondly, a list of the posts I need to post which I will post as soon as I properly steal some pictures from my friends.

1. Seville! (From ages and ages ago. Like.. a month ago. The Palace, the Cathedral, the Gardens, the city.)

2. Granada: The Alhambra

3. PICTURES FROM BOTH

4. Ciudad Rodrigo: Just a random city in spain that I visited randomly with Ann last weekend. We got on a bus and saw it then bused back.

5. Madrid (The second visit, although I don't think I took any picutres...) but I have lots to say about the Prado.

6. Toledo: a bit about Toledo

7. Mime deaf mute painter I met in Sabor Salsa club

8. Classes

But now I'm actually sleeping.

First: Here's Us in Toledo, where i was on Saturday (The... 17)

Madrid/El Prado

Madrid, Spain: Sunday October 18, 2009:

(I think you can click on the Pictures to actually see the whole frame)

We toured Madrid on an a bus and saw the Royal Palace an Egyptian "Temple" called Temple of Debod which was rebuilt in Madrid for some reason. (?!?) Actually, I know why. Wikipedia is the best. It was built because of Spain helped Egypt preserve some other temples, and it was a gift of gratitude from Egypt to Spain.

Anyway... I spent 4 hours in The Prado Museum, and while I saw ..... 4 hours worth of paintings (Nearly every single room in this 3 story museum. . lots and lots.) I took notes when we were on our tour, and will explain here what I was taught.

Painting 1:

Ok. This one is by Goya: It's a portrait of the royal family of King Charles IV and Family. Interesting thing about this portrait and Goya: He didn't like the royal family. The King, he felt, was not a good King so he did not flatter the portraits. None of his portraits of the royal family are painted with flattery- he drew them as they were: slightly deformed. They Bourbon family, for instance, had big noses. Another family had elongated necks, which Goya always was willing to expose. (The Royal families in Spain were very inbred, sickly, and slightly deformed.) About the Queen in this portrait: She supposedly looks hideous, but she was pleased with the Painting even though he painted her exactly as she was. She was vain enough to think it beautiful.

Goya also did this one: it is part of his dark works. It's a painting of Saturn eating his sons because he heard that one of them would usurp him as ruler. Dark..... in the Prado it's located in a Dark room and is amongst many other gruesome paintings.

Valazquez is another extremely famous Spanish Artist:

This one of the crucifixion scene is probably one of the most beautiful:

Out of the hundreds (well, maybe just 100) crucifixion depictions... this one is probably my favorite. Against the black it's simple, ominous and at the same time rather unearthly. Ironically, this Painting was commissioned as a bribe-gift. The King of Spain had tried to seduce a nun in a local convent, and the nun went to her sisters for protection. The King was scolded and he felt guilty, so he asked Valazquez to paint this for their convent. odd.

Other than Religious scenes and portraits, another subject for many painters were Greek Myths.

This painting depicts the moment when Apollo (glowing one) tells Vulcan that his wife (Venus) has had an affair with Mars. I don't know. It's obvious once you look at it, but I wouldn't have thought that this is what was going on in the painting unless I was told. I like the expressions on the faces of the observers. The one in the background looks as if he already knew. The others look shocked. And of course, Vulcan is rather appalled.

Valazquez's most famous painting is Las meninas:

This work is said to be the most famous painting for execllence in composition. There are many ways to inturpret it: What is basically going on, however, is the Infanta Magarita with her ladies in waiting. She is in the Royal Palace of her father King Phillip IV of Spain. It also has, in a mirror perhaps, a depiction of the King and Queen. They are sitting at their thrones, and perhaps the princess is visiting them. It is, therefore, a family portrait. It's interesting because the painting depicts Valazquez perhaps painting it. Meta-painting. Another interpretation is that the Valazquez is actually painting the King and Queen on their thrones and we are watching a snap shot of the scene. Confusing.

Ciudad Rodrigo

(Just another reminder to the few who are getting this as email, it's not an email it's a blog notification.)


Ann and I were stranded, roommate less, friendless, in Salamanca the weekend of October 9-12. Saturday, October 10, was spent roaming around Salamanca, quite aimlessly but actually for 7 hours. Lots of roaming. Lots of Museums. (ok, 2 museums...). But lots of walking.

One museum was very modern and had confusing videos for us to watch. I disliked it. It made me irritable in an irrational sort of way. Just annoying, pointless, "artsy" videos.

Video Example One:

Starts off with music: Jazz saxophone. Then you see a room, black and white coloring. The room is dingy, it's vacated. It looks as if it's in the upstairs of an abandoned building. Old. Dark. Dusty. And full of shoes. Lots and lots of shoes. And there are ladders. about 4 ladders. And a man in a sort of 20s outfit.. film noir style... is walking, sneaking, while a black saxaphonist walks through the hallway outside of the room. We see his silohette through the door, through windows. And this woman, wearing a white dress, comes in with a gun and starts shooting the man. He performs some sort of ballet spin and falls to the ground. Then he gets up, gets shot again, and falls. THIS GOES ON FOR 10 MINUTES. And there is reddish dust that comes from his shirt that is supposed to be blood. But it's so weird. He keeps running and getting shot. and shot and shot. And the woman laughs in a non-convincingly-evil-annoying sort of way. And it was awful.

That is that story.

We also saw a movie called Agora. Very good. I saw it in Spanish, missed a lot of it I'm sure, but got enough to like it. Very pretty cinematography at least.

anyway. SUNDAY OCTOBER 11

We had decided to take a day trip to Bejar, went to the bus stop and then saw that the bus was confused and left early. SO we randomly picked a bus, well not randomly because we went on the first bus to depart, and we ended up in this place called Ciudad Rodrigo.

Very pretty place.

Here are some nice pictures.

The Cathedral:

The Robin Hood

The View from the Wall

And the wall

The wall surrounds the inner city... is very cool looking. I felt epic while walking around it.. getting sun burnt... but you can see lots of things. And it was so warm to look at. Warm colors. Castilla Leon generally seems to have warmish looking stones. Even the Cathedrals.

Anyway: New Album for Ciudad Rodrigo. Seville and Granada and London in the process of being made.

NEW ALBUM HERE

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.