Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Road Trip Day 2: La Alpujarra and Almería
September 14th
We got up at 9:00 and piled back in the cars. Today we were going to Antonio's vacation home in the mountains of Alpujarra and later to the coast in Almería.
It was about an hour and a half drive up to the mountains. Our tiny Fiat had some problems getting up the hills, and Heiko had to seriously rev the engine in order to have enough power.
Antonnio's home was part of a small but gorgeous mountain community; quintissential white washed apartments set against the backdrop of the mountains. Inside was perfectly decorated with a country theme. The two balconies on the first and second floor looked out onto the olive groves and valley below. We explored the little community and I met Antonio's grandparents who live in another house in the community.
We drove the 2 kilometers down to the river. I felt like I had stepped into "Wild Strawberries" by Ingmar Bergman as we sped along the backroads filled with fruit trees and trickling streams. I hung my head out the window and breathed the clean air as the sun splashed my face.
Down at the bottom, we explored the little river and surrounding woods. Even though I had been in similar natural environments as this place, it felt different, as if even the natural geography became part of the different culture and country.
Back at the house, we started to prepare and cook for lunch. I watched Antonio make fresh french fries in olive oil and helped Heiko clean the chicken which we put in a pot with olive oil, onions, spices, and a mix of vegetables. We also had soup and fresh bread that we had picked up from a local bakery. It was a lot of fun cooking with my new roommates and despite being helpless at home in California in regards to my culinary prowess, I had indirectly picked up some of the cooking skills from my parents and younger brother and was able to help out a lot.
After lunch, Antonio helped me with some of my grammar homework that I had brought along. It was really helpful hearing the explanations of grammar rules from an actual Spaniard.
We still wanted to go to Almería, so we got back in the car and drove the hour to the coast. I fell asleep and woke up at the beach. It was a nice beach with more small pebbles than actual sand. We swam in the Mediterranean, it wasn't too cold, and then explored some rock formations farther down the beach. We soaked up the last rays of the sun and then headed back to Granada.
We had tapas on Gran Capitan and then I went back to my piso to finish my homework. Overall, it was a fantastic day and I feel really lucky to live with such cool people.
All said and done, the divided total price for our two day road trip, including cars, gas, and shared food was 25 euros.
Road Trip Day 1: Córdoba
September 13th
I slept over at my piso and got up early to meet up with the other Erasmus students to rent our cars from the hotel down the street. We rented a small Fiat and a slightly larger Volkswagon. There were 10 of us total, 6 germans, 1 Italian, 1 Spaniard, 1 Austrian, and me. We had decided to equally split the cost of the cars, gas, and shared food.
Speeding along the olive grove lined freeway, I spoke in Spanish with Antonio and another German student. The ride was only about an hour and a half as we made it to Córdoba by 11:00am. We decided to go to the center and then famous mosque.
Córdoba is a beautiful, small, quaint city. I thought certain parts were more beautiful than Granada although I think living there for the whole year would be difficult as it felt isolated and limited in regards to the social life and new events.
The centro was nice, but the courtyard of the mosque was amazing. We paid 8 euros to enter and once inside, the admission was well worth the price.
Looking just like the pictures I remembered from my Spanish and History textbooks, the interior of the mosque was sublime as hundreds of red and white, double-stacked arches on columns supported the lofted ceilings. It was so beautiful and big that it was difficult to absorb the entire picture. The building had initially started as a cathedral, then became a mosque, and then another cathedral as the power shifted between Christian and Muslim. Today the building is a mosque/cathedral as there are additional Baroque editions at the far ends of the halls.
Outside, I met my friend from highschool, Jolene Tanner, who I had not seen or really talked to in 4 years. On facebook I had seen that she was studying abroad in Córdoba for the semester and had sent her a last minute message seeing if she would be free to meet up. It was really fun meeting up with her in Spain and she joined our group for lunch and our tour of the city.
We went to the Jewish Quarter and turned the synagogue (one of three left in Spain). It was much smaller than the mosque but with beautiful architecture. Outside on the wall there was a sign from the Spanish government apologizing for the Inquisition and celebrating the "Jewish genius." ¡Viva España!
Wandering through the narrow cobble streets of the Jewish Quarter, we made our way to the Museum of Bellas Artes. I was supposed to pay admission as I was a non-EU citizen, but I avoided the "American tax" as I blended in with the German students in our group.
Rather than spend the night in Córdoba, we decided to drive back to Granada to sleep at our own piso and decide what we were going to do over dinner. We made our own tapas back at our apartment. After a few calls to his parents and friends, Antonio told us that we were all invited to his vacation home in La Alpujarra, a mountainous region south of Granada. Tomorrow we would go to his home and then the beach in Almería.
A Visit to the House of Federico García Lorca
September 12th
We boarded the bus at 9:30. Driving out of Granada on the tour bus for less than 3 minutes outside of the city limits put us right in the agricultural center of olive groves, corn fields, and pastures with flocks of sheep.
We went to a little town where Federico was born. After seeing the outside of the house, we drove to Valerrubio, the actual home and area where he grew up. The house was a traditional Andalucían home and it was fun to explore the floors of the house and back yard.
Although touring the home was interesting, my favorite part of the morning was reading poems and parts of plays that he had written in the converted farm house to theater in the back yard. I read "Gacela X: De la huida," in front of our class.
Back at the residencia, I finished my class schedule and if everything works out it should be a great mix of times and classes.
That night, I went to a music festival in Zaidin, an area in the outskirts of Granada. There was a carnival and a large stage where local bands played Spanish rock songs. Initially, I wasn't very impressed with the music, but when the headliner came on I was blown away. There name was "Muchachito" and they were a mix of flamenco, rock, jazz, and skaw. It was one of the best shows I'd seen in a long time as they were extremely talented and had great stage presence. The coolest thing though, was that they had a painter on stage painting a full size portrait of a guitarist. It took him most of the set to finish the whole thing. We left at 4:30 am and the concert and headliner were still going.
9/11, Visit to Cathedral, Housewarming party
September 11th,
I slept over at my piso and got up early to go over to Inma's office to ask questions about registering for classes.
As it turned out, I had been registering for my classes correctly and was ahead of schedule. She told me not to worry as she would be giving a presentation about classes the following week.
Class was good, as we kept up our fast pace in covering all of the material. I volunteered to read a poem at tomorrow's visit to Federico García Lorca's house.
I met up with our EAP group to tour the Cathedral of Granada. Our guide was a grad student who was very knowledgeable.
From the outside the Cathedral of Granada looks big, but nothing spectacular as the gargoyles and seals of the empire are decaying. We received our tickets and went into the "waiting room" before being allowed to venture inside.
Looks can be deceiving, as inside as I was stunned by the size, beauty, and color of the towering columns and 80 foot high ceilings. We were first greeted by a gruesome statue of Santo Matamoros, the Saint of the reconquest, trampling a moorish soldier. According to the legend, Matamors saw a vision of the Virgin Mary in a cave. She told him to begin the Christian reconquest and showed him the image of a white horse crushing a Moorish Soldier. They're not opposed to depicting violence in art.
Everything inside had been painted white with a special paint to protect against a plague during the XVI century. The gleaming ivory columns were decorated in gold leaf. In the center of the room was the largest pipe organ I have ever seen, with hundreds of pipes spanning out in all directions. They were covered in gold and at the tops sat golden statues of angels with trumpets. The organ is played twice a year, Christmas and the first day of Semana Santa.
The main display of statues, paintings, and lots of gold was stunning, although filled with irony and manipulation, as Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand were pictured in humble robes as Joseph and Mary. The pictured saints and other nobles in the paintings had bought their way into history and religious power.
That evening, I invited people over to my new piso and we had a housewarming party. This year will be a lot of fun as we all want to have dinner parties and social gatherings at eachother's apartments.
___
Today was the 7th anniversary of 9/11. I thought about how that day has changed the United States and the world. I remembered how at 13 I had biked to school and sat quietly in the classroom listening to the radio about events that I could not comprehend nor understand.
First Rain, New Piso, and Politics
September 10th
I woke up wondering why it was so dark in my room as generally light comes in through the holes in the shutter. I opened the window and was pleasantly surprised by the first rain. It was a gentle rain that washed away the dust from Africa and dropped the temperature by 30 degrees. I laughed as I had taken over all of my rain gear to my piso the day before.
In class I had to present my newspaper article. Apparently my presentation went well as people seemed engaged and were asking questions.
After class and lunch, I went back to my room to start homework and also figure out my classes. I got frustrated with my classes and decided to take a quick siesta. Its a tedious process to register as I have to enroll in a total of 16 classes by hand also try to make the schedule work.
My short nap turned into a 6 hours sleep as I had woken up at 5, looked at my watch and decided to take my time getting up by laying down on the other side of the bed. I fell asleep and woke up at 8:00.
I had told Nathalie that I wanted to hang out at 3:00, so I called her and told her I had over slept. I was planning on going over to my piso anyway but I felt irresponsible for completely missing our time.
My roommates were waiting for me when I arrived. We walked over to a tapas bar in Plaza Nueva to meet with some of their Erasmus friends to discuss plans for this weekend. They were talking of renting a car and touring Andalucía. I had group activities Friday evening and Saturday morning, but I thought it would be fun to go. I had originally wanted to visit Alex and Vanessa in Cádiz as they were giving a presentation, but we had group activities and I wouldn't have been able to get there until Saturday night. For the road trip, we planned on visiting Córdoba on Saturday. Sunday we weren't yet sure but were considering going to Málaga.
Back at the piso we hung out with our other apartment mate Antonio. Nathalie and Heiko went to bed and Antonio and I stayed up discussing philosophy and politics. We talked about gun control, abortion, and the US health care system. It was difficult to articulate what I wanted to say about the subjects in Spanish, but I think I did a pretty good job in expressing my opinion and it was great practice in comprehension and speaking.
Visit to Carmen de los Mártires, Nathalie, and Migrant Chefs.
September 9th.
I got up at 8:30, went to the gym, ate breakfast, and showered before class. Completing those three things before my official day starts always makes me more excited and ready for the tasks ahead.
Class was intellectually stimulating. I paid such close attention in grammar that I didn't even notice the time go by.
My travel plans for my week off are more or less open. Although I'm flying into Paris, I am considering meeting up with the majority of the other students from my program in Amsterdam. I was looking at bus tickets from Paris to Amsterdam and I found that all of the best ticket prices were on sites that were only in French. I hunched by my computer, copying and pasting all of the words that weren't Spanish cognates into an online translator. This tedious method was working pretty well until I got to the credit card page, in which it was much to complicated to try and translate. If I do end up going to Amsterdam, I'll probably my ticket in Paris with my friends who speak French.
I headed down to my apartment with a bag full of my winter clothes that I wouldn't be needing just yet.
Antonio, Heiko, and a guy named Chris, who Heiko had met through a friend at his Erasmus ILP school were at the apartment when I arrived. My other roommate who I hadn't met, Nathalie, was at the Alhambra and would be back in the evening. I couldn't stay long as I had to meet up with my monitores, so I dropped off my clothes and then walked the 30 minutes back up to La Cartuja. I would be back to my apartment later that night to pay my landlord the first month's rent.
We met with our monitores and walked to the Realejo area of the city, climbing a hill that led to the Alhambra. Instead of following the path to the palace, we took a side street which led us to what I would describe as "fantastical" neoclassical gardens with winding paths, fountains, sculptures, and roaming pea cocks. We were visiting the gardens of "Carmen de los Mártires." Certain areas of these public gardens can be reserved for private events. On the top of one of the hills overlooking Granada, we were granted a spectacular view of the city stretching out below. I spent a lot of time wandering the paths. Its not that far from my apartment and I plan on coming back.
I took my rent money to my apartment and met with my landlord. My apartment mate Nathalie and her boyfriend came in and I was really glad to finally meet her. Nathalie is from a small town in northern Germany. She is 20, beautiful, and down to earth. She'll be studying abroad the entire year as an Erasmus (inter EU) exchange student. She spoke perfect English and her Spanish was good as well. She is the only girl in our apartment of 5, but she said that she didn't mind and was looking forward to the year.
Chris, Heiko's friend, was in the kitchen making dinner. 30 years old and a roaming traveler, he finances his time abroad through high stakes online poker. He had somehow met Hieko, and after something had fallen through with his other living situation, Heiko invited to spend the night on the couch in our apartment. He was also an amazing chef, as he "paid for his stay" by making us a fantastic Korean chicken dinner with rice and steamed vegetables.
After dinner I spent a couple hours talking to my new roommates and then walked back to the residencia as its easier in the morning to sleep at the dorm.
7th Anniversary of my Bar Mitzvah
September 8th
Class was good today as I had grammar, literature, and history. The ILP is different than I expected as I feel that most of the discussion is in the classroom and the outside assignments seem independent of themselves. I can tell that since starting the ILP three weeks ago, my comprehension and speaking ability has significantly improved.
The rest of the day was low key as I organized my room and continued thinking about travel plans.
Although today was "less exciting" than my other days so far, it was significant as it marked the 7th anniversary of my bar mitzvah. A lot has changed in the last 7 years for both my life and for my country. My bar mitzvah was one of the last days of what I can consider a "pre-world" in my life; before my parent's divorce and the deaths of many of my relatives and old family friends. For my country, it was one of the last few days of the pre 9/11 world.
In 7 years, I've grown and changed. I've had many amazing opportunities and although I've wondered how my past would have been different had the above events not occurred, I am proud of what I've accomplished and am looking forward to the future for both my life and my country.
Monday, September 8, 2008
A Lot of Sleep and the Planning for the Next Adventure
September 7th
I had gone out for tapas with Antonio and Heiko and was so tired that I decided to sleep at my apartment. I woke up around 11:00 and decided to walk back to the residencia by only taking "new" streets.
After about an hour, I made it back to the residencia. My meandering had led me to find some beautiful places that I don't think I would have found otherwise. To the right of my apartment is a river lined with a beautiful lit walkway and gardens. I followed the path along the river then cut back toward the direction of the Alhambra and the residencia by going through the "Albaycín," the ancient Arab quarter built in the 1300s. I got lost in the Albaycín, but eventually made my way out. It was a good walk and I was glad to explore the city at my own pace.
Back at the residencia, I finished my homework and then more or less "solidified" my travel plans for the week off that I will have between the ILP and my actual university of Granada classes. I had been talking with people the last week to see what they were planning on going. The majority of people were planning on going to Amsterdam. I had sent emails to my friends who were studying in Paris and received messages saying that I could come and stay with them. I booked my roundtrip tickets on Ryan Air from Madrid to Paris for less than 100 euro. Paris is one of the main cities that I want to see and since I'll have friends to stay with, I won't have to worry about accommodations. I leave the 21st and come back the 27th. Those days in between, I have no set plans, which is both cool and kind of scary.
I kept up with my recuperation by taking advantage of the siesta. I did a little extra review of vocabulary and then went downstairs to the "TV room" to watch part of the Chargers football game that one of the guys on the program was having streamed to his computer. Not even 7,000 miles, and the total lack of interest in American Football outside the United States would stop him from rooting for his favorite team.
Salobreña: A Day at the Beach in Andalucía
September 6th
I was still pretty tired from the day before but decided to keep living the study abroad experience to the max by joining a group of students from my program for a day trip to the beach in Salobreña.
About a 1 hour bus ride south of Granada, Salobreña is a quaint beach and farming town and good example of the Andalucían region . Small cafés, olive groves, and an ancient Moorish castle striding the top of the largest hill provide a picturesque foreground to the backdrop of the Mediterranean sea. We arrived in the morning at about 10:00am and went to the supermarket to buy some food. It actually wasn't that great of day to visit the beach as it was very windy and the water was California cold (some kids had gone the week before and apparently the water was really warm). Nevertheless, it was still a lot of fun to be at the beach with my new friends from the program and a couple of our Spanish monitores.
About 50 yards out on the water was a large, blue floating platform with slides and diving boards. A few of the other guys and I swam out to the platform. We spent a long time jumping off the platform into the sea as we would time waves to maximize the air that we would get when we would jump off. Each swell would lift the platform a good 6 or more feet and with proper timing, jumping off as the swell cut away would launch us into the air. It was a lot of fun, but I swam back as I was getting really cold from the wind.
For most of the afternoon we lazed around on the beach. I took a walk with a couple of the other guys along with beach and we ran into two other groups of American students. One was OAP (Opportunities Abroad Program, the other program offered at UCSD to study abroad. Less intense academically, but more independent in regards to schedule) and we met kids from UCLA, UCSD, and a lot from Ohio State. They were living with homestay families and many of them would only be in Granada for a semester. The other group that we met was from the California State University System. It seems like I've come to Spain to study abroad in California.
Later in the afternoon we went to go explore the Moorish Castle that was perched on the top of the hill and overlooking the sea and surrounding valley. We walked along the steeply inclined cobble stone streets of the ivory-white, apartment-building, mountain village. At the top we paid 1.13 euros (?) to enter and explore the castle. The castle had fantastic views of the sea and surrounding area.
We headed back down and decided to catch an earlier bus. We were supposed to leave at 9:15 but there was a bus leaving an hour earlier that we were able to get on. Like the bus to Tomatina, we ended up getting back to Granada at about the same time as the other bus would have, as it made stops in all of the little villages along the way (on the way down we hadn't stopped at all).
That night, I went out for tapas with my new apartment mates.
Party Hard, Bureaucracy Hard, Study Hard, Tour Hard
September 5th
When the social life starts at 12:00am its sometimes difficult to distinguish when one day starts and the other begins. "Today" is a good example of this as I went out until 4:00am and came to the police station at 7:00am for my second attempt at my visa extension.
Thursday is a big night to go out in Granada (actually every night is a popular night to go out in Granada. With 60,000 college students and hundreds of clubs, tapas bars, and activities there is never a dull moment). A couple of the monitores wanted to take their groups out for tapas, botellón, and then go to a club. I wanted to go, but I knew that I wanted to get up early and head to the police station. Tomorrow/Today would be Friday and although we didn't have class we had the presentation by Inma and another by the history professor as we would be going to the Alhambra later that afternoon.
We met up with our monitores in the Plaza del Triumfo, down the hill from the residencia, and then went out on the town. We went to a club called "Vogue" (pronounced vo-GUE), which had a bunch of random tecno/house remixes of American songs that I didn't really like. I was asleep at my apartment by 4am.
I new that getting to the police station at 7 would put me far back in line, but I wanted to get a couple of hours of sleep (I suppose if I was a true "granadino" I would have gone straight from the club to the police station at 4:30am and be the first one in the door). Today, I received number 45 and figured I would be ok on time. Once again, I seriously misjudged as the overall wait until my application was processed took a total of 4 and a half hours. After waiting until 10:00am just to get inside the police station, I waited another hour and a half inside in the subsequent lines to file my form. The wait inside didn't seem as long as I struck up a conversation with a couple from South Africa and students from Chile and Libia. We discussed American politics and why each of us was in Granada. We had got on the conversation about American politics when I had told the South Africans that I was from California rather than the United States. They had noticed that, and we spent the greater part of the wait discussing the 2008 election. Like Israel, South Africa seems to be treated as an international pariah as the couple said that Spain was one of the few places they were allowed to immigrate to.
Finally it was my turn, and thankfully the whole process took only 5 minutes. Dropping off the application was only the first of three visits that I would have to make to the police station. I will have to return in 10 days for the next step.
At 11:30 I had missed a good portion of the presentation on the Alhambra. I have already been, but I would have liked to have heard the presentation by the professor. I was feeling pretty tired during Inma's presentation on class registration but I managed to struggle through until after lunch when I took a quick siesta.
We took a charter bus to the Alhambra, which took a really long time as it had to go all the way around Granada before it could enter the parking lot as the streets leading up to the Alhambra are all too small for such a large vehicle.
Although I had seen the Alhambra before, I was really happy to see it again. The history professor was our "tour guide" and he told us a lot of great "hidden" facts about the Alhambra that I had not known before. Since I had taken a ton of pictures on my first tour, this time through I could really stop and absorb the detail and grandeur of the palace. The Alhambra is so big that even a guided 3 hour tour does not cover all of the grounds. On this trip, I didn't get to see the gardens, but I did get to tour the "Alcazaba" or old military wing, and climb the lookout tower that has a spanning view of all of Granada and the surrounding country side.
Leaving the Alhambra from a southern exit, I was really surprised and excited to see how close it was to my apartment! As I was leaving, I received a call from Heiko saying that our new apartment mate, Antonio, had just arrived. I headed straight to my apartment from the Alhambra.
Just talking to him in the first 5 minutes, I could tell Antonio was a cool guy. A little shorter than Heiko and me, but with an athletic build, Antonio looked like an outdoorsy, adventurous person. He was trying to organize his room. A mini-fridge, two-mountain bikes, and a five gallon bottle of olive oil were propped against the wall. He is from Almería, Spain; a small beach town right on the Mediterranean Sea. Heiko was going out with friends and invited us to come. Antonio wanted to get organized and I had some things to do back at the residencia. Nevertheless, I ended up talking to Antonio for a good hour. He is also 23 and is in his last year here at the University of Granada studying "Derecho" (Law). Last year he was an Erasmus student to Germany so he is speaks Spanish and German. Between him, Heiko, and my other German roommate I think I'll have plenty of opportunities to learn German.
How I Love Bureaucracy
September 4th.
I had slept over at my new apartment so that I could head straight to the police station to begin the process for my visa extension. Thinking that getting there nearly 2 hours early would be fine, I was proven seriously wrong as I received my number "70" and was told to go stand in the "extranjeros" (foreigner) line. There were two long lines, one for Spanish/EU citizens and one for everyone else. When the police station opened at 9:00am, the line didn't move at all as they would only take two people from each of the two lines and wait until they had finished what they had to do inside. There were a few other kids from my program who were also trying to get a head start on the visa process. After an hour of not moving, I decided that I would return the next day even earlier. I should mention that the police station is only opened from 9-2, the same exact hours of our classes. Luckily for me, I have an "open first" study period until 10:00am so If I was one of the first in line I would hopefully be able to get in and out without missing any class.
Today our 11:00 teacher was unable to come, so I had an extra hour. Rather than wait in the line that wasn't moving, I went over to the University of California/University of Granada Study Center to talk with the International Student Advisor (a really nice lady named Inma who has a similar position to my mom's job at ELS). I had been confused about how I was supposed to register for classes. Inma told me not to worry as she would be giving a presentation to us tomorrow and had assembled some helpful handouts to assist us with the process. I also told her that I had rented a piso, and she told me that I should feel lucky to have found such a good one. Both Inma and the study center director (and UCSD professor) Ramon are very helpful and attentive to what we need.
I walked briskly back up to the residencia in time for my 12:00 class. As it turned out, two of the kids from my program had been able to get their form processed. I decided to go back tomorrow and try again.
Routine-ish
September 3rd.
With the ILP in full swing, my days here in Spain have taken on a degree of routine as during the week I have class, lunch, siesta/freetime, and monitore groups.
Today, I found the classes to be very interesting. The lit professor is pretty crazy. He drops such elevated topics in his free form presentation that my brain hurts by the time the class is over.
Overall the day was pretty low key, but I got a lot organized in regards to my classes and the forms that I will need for my visa extension.
That night, Heiko called me to let me know that he was going to have some friends over at our new piso and that he wanted to know if I was going to be able to stop by. I was planning on sleeping over at my piso that night anyway as I wanted to get up early the next morning to go to the police station (which was only 1 block away from my piso). I invited a few people to come over which turned into 15 or so who wanted to come see my apartment. My apartment is pretty big as we had no problem fitting all of my American friends and Heiko's European friends into the living room. It wasn't an official house warming party, merely a cultural-exchange get together. Everyone left at about 12:00am. Heiko had class early the next morning and I wanted to get up and head to the police station by 7:30 as I had heard that there would be a huge line (it opened at 9:00am).
Class and the New Piso
September 2nd.
For grammar, the main focus has been on learning the "vosotros" form. This is translated in English to be a "common you-plural form" like "y'all." In the Spanish of North and South America, the vosotros form is not used nor taught in American Spanish classes. It is not that difficult to use, although the conjugation is more confusing than the other forms. In history and literature, we've jumped back in forth in time, but have more or less established the foundation for which we will continue the subsequent analysis.
That afternoon, I went with my monitore group to a cool coffee shop and jazz club. It was similar to the discotheque that I had visited on my birthday as it was decorated with many American 1920's photos.
After dinner I went back over to my new piso to pay my deposit and first month's rent. I met my apartment-mate Heiko, a 23 year old German sporting a spiked blonde faux-hawk, black dress shirt, and white capris. He speaks nearly perfect English, although his Spanish is worse than mine. Heiko is an "Erasmus" student; a program within the EU that allows EU students to study within the different countries. He is a from a little town near Frankfurt. Like my University of California ILP program, Heiko is going through an equivalent German ILP program. He too was living in a residencia, but decided to move in to his room in our apartment.
I paid my landlord and then joined Heiko and three of his friends that he had invited over at our dining room table. These other students were also Erasmus and were from Germany and Italy. It was fun talking to all of them as I got a different perspective of studying abroad.
Heiko's friends left at about 10:00pm and I stayed to talk. We agreed to make sure that only Spanish would be spoken in the living room and kitchen as we both wanted to approve in Spanish as much as we could. Our conversation was in Spanish but when we didn't know a word we could keep the conversation going by saying the word in English.
I said goodnight to Heiko and walked the half and hour back to the residencia (whose distance is further emphasized as my apartment is in such a good location). Although I could sleep over at my apartment, its easier to sleep at the residencia as I have class there in the morning. If my other apartment-mates are as half as cool as Heiko, it will be an even more amazing year.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
My Very Own Piso!
September 1st
Today was a lucky day as I found and signed for my own piso. It is in the perfect location: in the Centro, close to Ronda, Albaycín, my facultad, and all of the places of interest. My room is huge as I have a full size bed and my own personal terraza that gives me a great view of the entire street and almost to the center of the city. The apartment itself takes up the entire 4th floor (the other places I looked at shared a floor with two or three more apartments) of the five story building. Long spanning hallways, a nice size kitchen, great living room, and balcony make the piso feel spacious and intimate at the same time. There are five bedrooms, which at the time of this entry, only four had been filled including me. It has all of the amenities, with central heating, ac, tv, internet, and washer. Its only drawback is that its about 50 euros more that I wanted to spend per month on a piso. Although it is more expensive, the rent at 320 euros a month (roughly 450 dollars), is significantly less than what I would be paying in La Jolla.
The process of visiting and signing the contract for my new piso took up most of the afternoon, but the ILP classes in the morning were great. In my Spanish literature class we discussed Don Quijote and my professor offered a new critical perspective and I had not seen before. He refuted the idea that Don Quijote is an idealist as he believed that Don Quijote's idealism, delivered by the point of his spear, could not be considered idealism (He is referring to the scene in which Don Quijote stops the group of traveling merchants and demands that they believe that his lady is the most beautiful). The professor believed that Don Quijote's use of violence negated the idea of a true idealist. I thought this was an interesting point, but had remembered the same professor describing how he considered that Karl Marx was the most original idealist and free from thinker to have ever lived. After class I approached him and asked how he could think that Don Quijote's idealism was invalid while Marx's (which of course advocates the ultimate revolution of the proletariat, something that would be extraordinarily violent) idealism was considered to be true. Thus ensued a great discussion in which we discussed globalization, power of politics, and the ultimate idea of utopia. It was difficult for me to try and articulate what I wanted to say as my vocabulary in Spanish is fairly limited. I think I was able to get my point across and whether I agreed or disagreed with my professor, I really enjoyed his eagerness to engage in a conversation. All of the professors in the ILP program have done a great job in making us feel like true University of Granada students.
I went back to my new apartment again at night to try and meet some of my roommates. No one was home initially, but I was able to meet my newest roommate, an 18 year old boy from Madrid. With his signing of the last room, our apartment is completely full. I will be living with two Germans, 1 girl and 1 boy, and 2 Spaniards. I'm definitely excited to have a mix of countries, cultures, and languages.
Blackberries, Mountain Goats, and Caves: A Group Hike Through Granada's Wilderness Perserve
August 31st.
I finished the last day of August by taking an amazing group hike through Granada's next door National Park.
Although it was Sunday and our normal day to sleep in, I woke up at 8:00am, had breakfast and was outside getting on the charter bus by 9:00. Today, the whole group, including our teachers and UC directors, would be going on an "excursion" to "Monachil Parque Nacional," which is a few kilometers outside of Granada's city limits.
The tour bus parked and dropped us off in the middle of a seemingly residential neighborhood. There was a small plaza surrounded by 4-story apartment buildings that had been built on the banks of a flowing stream. We walked up the streets, slowly climbing the steeping grade of the winding street. After about 10 minutes, in which the surrounding houses and buildings were becoming less frequent, we came to the trail head. The trail itself was flat and sometimes paved, but it wound through the wilderness bringing us to numerous panoramic lookouts out onto the spanning valley with the flowing river surrounded by lichen-covered rock formations.
There were some great spanning cable bridges that wobbled over the mouth of the canyon. Along the way we picked black berries and saw two mountain goats that were navigating some of the more treacherous rocks.
At about 11:30 we stopped for lunch and then had about 30 minutes to explore. I went with a few other guys up the steep face of the mountain side. I was wearing sandals so I had to watch my step, but I made it up quickly, finding an obsidian tipped arrow along the way (it looked like it had been made really recently, but someone had done a really nice job on the fletching and obsidian point). About mid-way up the slope, I saw the entrance to a small cave on a nearby crest and went over to explore it. It was not very deep, but it had a wide mouth and enough space to lay down comfortably inside.
I slid down the mountain face to catch back up to the big group that was just starting to climb up a series of switchbacks that would take us back to the bus. Somehow we managed to walk uphill both ways. Overall it was a great hike and I definitely want to go back and explore.
Back at the residencia, I did half of my laundry in the machine and the other half in my bathtub as I didn't have enough room for all of it in the machine. It was actually pretty easy to wash it in the bath tub. I then took an extra mop handle and made an additional drying pole for the clothes to be hung up in my bathroom.
I spent the rest of the afternoon doing ILP homework and looking for pisos. After finishing my tasks, I asked my friend if he wanted to go for tapas. We explored Plaza del Toros, another popular area to live just south east of la residencia, and ended up at "El Nido de Buho," which turned out to be the best tapas place I had eaten at yet. We met up with some of the girls from the program and were lucky enough to snag a table as the tapas bar was packed with people during the rush hour after 10pm. Our conservation was about pisos, and I was the only one who had not found anything. When I told them that I hadn't seen one that I really liked, one of the girls gave me the number to a place in the Centro that was expensive but apparently really nice. I called the land lord and scheduled a visit for the next day.
Back at the residencia, I hung out with some of the Spaniards who are also living in the same building. They have all been busy with tests (the Spanish educational system is a lot different, as the students have the opportunity to retake exams from the past semester that they didn't do well on again at the beginning of the new school year). It was a lot of fun talking to them and we may hang out later.
Up and At 'Em
August 30th
I woke up feeling a little sick. The past week of meeting everyone, going to Tomatina, and now the piso search, was catching up to me. Throughout the day, I made sure I drank a lot of water and took advantage of the siesta.
The search for a piso continued, as I went straight to my computer and started looking at the online sites for pisos in Granada. There are a couple really helpful websites that stream the newest postings. I found one in the "Centro" and called to see if I could visit it that day.
On the phone, the people sounded cool. There was a guy and a girl and they said that I could come see the piso right away. It was actually past the Centro, but still in a nice area. Its 7th floor location was the tallest in the building and I hoped that this place would be a better version of the one in Ronda that I had looked at. I guess I had misread who these people were as when I came to the door, I was greeted by a young couple in their mid thirties. They both had full time jobs. The apartment was nice, but very quiet. They showed me around the apartment and then took me up to the 8th floor community terraza, which had a decent view of the surrounding area. I asked how many people came up to the top and they told me that no one did as they were the youngest people in the building. Everyone was very polite, but we all knew that we weren't the people the other was looking for. Had I wanted an apartment only for studying, this would have been it.
I had a "low key" night in Granada, that consisted of a visit to a couple of tapas bars. I was feeling tired and went home to go to sleep at the extremely early hour of 12:00 am.
Let the Piso Hunting Begin!
August 29th
We had another orientation at 10:00am describing what we would have to do to receive a "Residencia card" (in order to stay for the entire year) and also what we had to do about classes and piso (apartment) hunting.
As soon as it had finished, I went back to my room to look at my list of numbers, locations, and prices for pisos spread throughout the city. Ideally, I wanted to live in "Centro" or "Ronda" the first, as the name implies, right in the center of the city. Here in Granada, all of the places of interest: museums, tapas bars, discotheques, not to mention the majority of the facultades (colleges) for the University of Granada are all within 10 minutes walking from the "Centro." "Ronda" is south of "Centro" and offers cheaper housing. Many colleges students try to live in that area although it fills up very quickly. For the permanent housing process, we are basically on our own. The UC center recommends what areas are good to live and those that are not, but all of the searching, negotiating, and signing of the contract are all up to the individual student. Its a daunting task that becomes unnerving as more and more places fill up as the end of August and beginning of September bring thousands of students in the same situation to Granada.
I called a few numbers but no one I talked to could meet today, so I went with my friend Blake to visit a piso that he was going to in "Ronda." My map of Granada has helped me a lot as I have a tendency to be very disorientated and lost without it. From my dorm in "La Cartuja" to Ronda was a 30 minute walk. My dorm is relatively far away from the city.
We made it to Ronda a few minutes before his scheduled meeting time, so we explored the surrounding area that was packed with tapas bars.
We met the land lord of the apartment downstairs in the lobby and we took the elevator all the way to the top on the 9th floor. The apartment was small, dark, and dirty with no central heating or internet (I mention central heating as, although it is quite hot in Granada right now, everyone I have talked to says it gets really cold during the winter. Granada is part ski resort. Those people who didn't have heating in their apartments almost all purchased personal heaters for their rooms). The one thing I really liked about the apartment was its amazing "terraza" (outdoor patio) that was as almost as big as the apartment itself. Being on the ninth floor, I could see over all of the buildings and was impressed by the phenomenal view of the Alhambra. Since I hadn't been the one to call this apartment, I didn't look at it too closely (thus the benefits and problems with piso hunting with a partner. If we both like a place, what are we supposed to do? I did find it helpful initially though to have another person there to catch more of the Spanish and remember to ask questions that I had forgotten to ask).
Despite the awesome view, the apartment itself was nothing spectacular and I thought almost a little expensive (~220 euros) for what I would have received. Its important to note that Granada is significantly cheaper than the rest of Spain as the prices for pisos range from 150 euros a month (for a closet in Cartuja) to over 300 for an amazing place right in the center of the city. Even if the exchange rate was 2 to 1, I would still be paying less for an apartment here in Granada than I would be paying in California.
We left the apartment and walked over to a tapas bar on the next street. This might have been the least inexpensive tapas bar yet as a drink and tapa was 1 euro. While we were eating, another student from our program and his new Spanish roommates came into the same bar. We said "hi" and told him that we had been piso hunting. He said that they had an extra room in their apartment and that we were welcome to take a look.
Our friend's apartment was a good size with three bedrooms, common room, and kitchen. The room he had gotten was fantastic, with one whole wall being windows offering a great view of the street. I realized that what I really wanted for my piso was good natural lighting, and for the most part I had only found rooms that had windows looking into the wall of the apartment next to it (the apartments in Spain seemed to be built with in a square with the center cut out, so some rooms have windows that face into the other side of the building). The room in this apartment we were looking at was just ok. I liked the layout of the apartment but not the room. Although our friend who showed us the room is from California, he speaks perfect Spanish and would be the kind of guy who would maintain Spanish at home. None of us really want to room with one another as we know that it will be difficult to maintain Spanish at home. Personally, I want to live with Spaniards, then students from other countries in Europe, and lastly Americans. I'm here to learn Spanish and I know speaking the language at home will galvanize my ability to learn and speak much more.
We both liked the apartment, but Blake did more. He didn't sign anything, but we did get the verbal agreement that our friend would call us if anyone was seriously looking at it; giving us the chance to step up and rent it. There's something to be said for nepotism.
Back at the residencia, we spoke with the other kids about their search process. Although the majority hadn't found anything, a fair amount had. I was not sure how many had signed the first one they'd seen, a tempting idea as each day without a piso only made it more difficult to find one the next.
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