Circuses and Colosseums.

     This past Friday our program brought us on a day trip to the town of Tarragona, a smaller city about an hour away from Barcelona.  I'm almost positive that no one reading this has ever heard of Tarragona and if you visit Barcelona, there's not much of a chance that you would visit this city.  That would be a horrible mistake.  Tarragona was the Roman capital of Spain two thousand years ago and the city still has many Roman ruins throughout it.  As the history nerd that I am, I was just in awe walking around the same areas that had been inhabited by people over 2000 years ago!  It was a beautiful city and we were lucky enough to have absolutely gorgeous weather.  I think it was around 70 degrees the entire day.  I loved it so much there that I actually ended up returning the next day with my friend Amanda.  When we were with our program we got to spend about an hour on the beach but due to the gorgeous weather, that was not even close to enough.  So on Saturday we packed sandwiches and headed down for the day early in the morning in order to spend as much time as possible lounging on the beach!  It was a positively perfect day, although I did finish the book that I had been hoping would last me until the end of my trip here. Oops!

One of my favorite parts about these ancient cities is how they don't barricade off the ruins.  They're included right alongside the newer apartment buildings!

I saw these cats alongside the road and thought they were absolutely adorable, hugging like that.

This was part of the Roman circus.  The circus is not like we think of a circus today.  The circus was where they raced their horses and chariots around.

This is me in the stands of Tarragona's colosseum where many gladiators and Christians came to meet their death.  

The sea was so beautiful, although freezing cold.  Amazingly enough, the beach was not crowded at all! 

     This may sound strange, but one of my favorite parts of being in a foreign country is meeting other Americans.  No matter where you are, if you hear someone with an American accent, you feel an instant connection to them.  On the train to Tarragona on Saturday we met a girl who was studying in Barcelona but was from Chicago.  She was very nice and was on her way to Valencia, a city about three hours south of Barcelona.  There was another boy in the same area as us that was also going to Valencia and he was from Minnesota.  It was a little Midwest party in our section of the train!  He asked where we were from and when I told him Wisconsin, we had a little Wisconsin geography discussion and it turns out he used to date a girl from Manitowoc (a small town about an hour from Appleton, for those of you not up to par on your Wisconsin geography).  You have no idea how exciting it is to meet someone who actually knows where Manitowoc is until you're thousands of miles away from it.  

     I'm very excited for next weekend as my friend Mara from school (the one I went to Prague with) is coming to visit me!  We have tons of adventures no matter where we go, so I'm very excited to see what we get up to while she visits me here!

A departure from the norm.

     Most of the people reading this either know my little brother, Jeremiah, or hear me talking about him frequently.  In case anyone was unaware of what today (March 17th) is, let me inform you.  Not only is it St. Patrick's Day, but it is also my one and only brother's sixteenth birthday!  On the off-chance that anyone doesn't know him, let me tell you a little bit about the boy that is Jeremiah Hawk Lemke-Rochon.
     I was four years old when Jeremiah was born, which means that I have some vague memories of my mom's pregnancy and when he was actually born.  I can remember laying in my mom's bed with her stomach bulging in front of her being so excited.  I can also remember desperately wanting a sister. Oh well.
     We're not the type of siblings that fought all throughout our childhood and then when I moved off to college we suddenly became best friends. No. We've gotten along all sixteen of the years we've lived together.  I can remember a time when we were both little and we were in my dad's office tossing a ball back and forth and I asked him how his day at school was.  My dad looked at us, incredulous, and said "I have never met a pair of siblings that actually asked each other how their days were!" But that's just the kind of siblings we are.
     Jeremiah is probably one of the funniest guys I've ever met.  Unfortunately for you guys, I can't exactly explain his brand of humor.  Most of it is the "you had to be there" type.  All I know is that one of the things he complains the most about when I'm gone at school is that I'm the only one who finds him funny, our parents just sit there and stare at him.  In addition to being funny he's also kind, sweet, caring, and sensitive to everyone around him.
     Ninety-nine percent of my favorite memories from being at home involve my little brother.  I truly believe that I'm the luckiest girl in the world because I have the best family in the world.  My friends at school tease me for having the perfect family. While we may not be perfect, I'd like to believe we're pretty close and a big part of that is having Jeremiah as our youngest member. Happy birthday little brother, I hope it's a great one!

Tapa hopping and so much more.

     You know how last week I told you I was glad I decided to study in Barcelona? I may have possibly changed my mind.  This past weekend I went on a trip with two of my friends from here in Barcelona to Andalusia, the southern-most region in Spain.  We started out in Sevilla and then went to Granada for the last part.  I absolutely fell in love with Granada. I could have stayed there the rest of the semester and not had any problems.

          This was my first time flying on RyanAir, Europe's premiere budget airline.  It was an incredibly nerve-wracking and stressful experience.  Their flights are incredibly cheap, but they're infamous for their horrible service and tacking on ridiculous fees if you do anything wrong.  They charge you 40€ to check a bag, so naturally everyone tries to only bring a carry-on.  But the carry-ons can only weigh ten kilograms and they have to be able to fit in these medal containers to ensure that they're not too big.  Mine fit the weight requirement, but I was sure that if I was asked to put mine in the medal containers, it wouldn't fit.  People were literally cramming their bags in there just to ensure that they wouldn't have to pay.  Luckily I managed to hide my bag as I was boarding the plane so I avoided being asked to put mine in.  They also seem to manage having such cheap prices by attempting to sell you everything under the sun while you're on the plane.  There were announcements every five minutes trying to sell us food, perfume, lottery tickets, more food, drinks, and anything else you could possibly think of.  While I'm grateful that I was able to get to Sevilla and Granada cheaply, it's not an experience I want to repeat anytime in the near future.

    The first thing you notice about Sevilla is the massive amounts of orange trees that are growing everywhere.  You cannot escape them.  We took a free tour on Thursday when we first got there and during it our guide asked people to try the oranges. You're free to pick them and eat them if you want to, however, I guess they're really sour and gross and no one actually wants to eat them.  

Orange tree. Yellow house.

    One thing I noticed being in the south of Spain was that there was a lot of attention focused around "Los Reyes Católicos" (The Catholic Kings, Isabella and Ferdinand).  These were the king and queen that sent Christopher Columbus on his voyage that eventually resulted in him bumping into the new world.  Since Columbus set sail from Sevilla, it became an extremely important city after 1492.  

A statue to honor Isabella and Ferdinand.

     I think I'm going through animal deprivation because every time I see an animal, whether it be wild or someone's pet, I get really excited.  I think I just miss Storm and Albus.  On this trip I saw a lot of ducks and cats.  And a peacock.

Me and the peacock. At one point it started making these really loud squawking noises that were answered by a peacock that was out of sight.

On our tour we were taken to a place built as an apology from Spain to Latin America.  It's called Plaza España (which is confusing because we have a Plaça Espanya here in Barcelona) and it was absolutely gorgeous. In fact, it is so gorgeous that when George Lucas (of Star Wars and Indiana Jones fame) saw it, he fell in love with it, and had Anakin Skywalker and Padme walking through it in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones.  You can youtube it.  As a major Star Wars fan, this just made my day.

You can see how George Lucas fell in love with it, it was absolutely gorgeous.

     Flamenco originated in the south of Spain and everywhere you looked there was some sort of flamenco attire.  We went into El Corte Inglés (their version of Macy's) to find me pajama pants (as I had completely forgotten to pack any) and what we found was row upon row of flamenco dresses.  I can't imagine actually owning one of these. They're so brightly colored and loud.  It's crazy.  

They're insanely expensive too! These were all around 400€.

     I think I'm on beauty overload.  Everything in Europe is so gorgeous and ornate that after a while it feels like I can't take in anymore beauty.  I start to forget what I've seen or I remember what I've seen, but I can't remember what it is.  There was a point in Granada where we had the option of going into the cathedral but opted out of it simply because we didn't feel like spending the 3.5€ to get in when we had already seen what seemed like every other cathedral in Spain in the past month and a half.  It's all gorgeous, but it's starting to blend together at this point.  I feel like I need to go somewhere really ugly for about a week so I can come back and truly appreciate this all again.

Sadly, I can't quite remember what this is, but it was beautiful!

     One of the amazing things about being in the south of Spain is that it was inhabited by the Moors from 711-1492 when Los Reyes Católicos finally succeeded in re-conquering all of Spain.  This means that there had been plenty of Moorish architecture built all around Spain in those 700-odd years.  Luckily the Spaniards recognized how beautiful the architecture was and instead of destroying it, they simply turned it into Christian buildings instead of Muslim.  La Giralda is a tower right next to the cathedral in Sevilla that was originally a minaret but was turned into a bell tower.  You could climb up it and get gorgeous views of the city from the top.  Interestingly, there is not a single stair in the entire tower.  The man that would have announced the prayer times would have had to climb up there five times a day, which would have been extremely exhausting.  Instead he rode a horse up to the top, hence the ramps and not stairs!

Gorgeous city!

     Granada was a fascinating city to be in because it has so many different, distinct neighborhoods.  The first part we went to was extremely Arabic.  There were tiny little stores filled to the brim with all sorts of knick-knacks, tea shops, and kebab shops everywhere you could see.  It was absolutely great.  One of the girls I went with, Brianna, has been to Morocco before and she said it was just like being back there!

This was one of the stores we went into. Everything was so cheap!

I got some chai tea at one of the tea shops. It was probably the best chai tea I've ever had!

     We walked up to a look out point on Saturday night where we could see the Sierra Nevada mountains and the Alhambra all lit up.  It was absolutely gorgeous.  On the way back we decided to take a bus so we could get closer to our hostel.  It was the most hilarious bus ride of my life.  It was a tiny bus absolutely packed with people.  We were flying down tiny little streets with only inches on either side. We kept falling over and I didn't think there was anyway we were actually going to make it back in one piece. But our bus driver was definitely the right guy for the job as he got us back safe and sound!

It was absolutely impossible to get a good picture of how tightly packed this bus was.  This was the best I could do.

     Granada is one of the last places in Spain where you can still get tapas the traditional way.  Traditionally, you're supposed to get tapas whenever you order a drink (alcoholic or not), for free.  We decided to take advantage of this and went around to a bunch of different bars to sample all of their tapas.  My parents have been pressuring me to try an olive here in Spain and I finally decided to go for it as they came with one of the tapas.  They are just as disgusting here as they are in America.

This is a picture to prove that I really did try an olive. And hated it.

     If you go to Granada, you have to see the Alhambra.  It's one of the most visited sights in all of Spain and it's absolutely gorgeous.  Someone told us that it gets nine thousand visitors a day.  Although for getting so many visitors, it was strangely not that crowded. It's an absolutely huge place to visit.  Around every corner there was something more and more beautiful.

     In our wanderings of the city we saw a ton of ice cream shops.  While it was a little cold to be eating ice cream, who were we to say no to good ice cream?  We finally gave in on Sunday afternoon and went to a little shop to get some delicious, cold ice cream.  

I had a big craving for some chocolate so I got "Chocolate Negro".  It was darker than zanzibar, the darkest chocolate we have at Paradise Island! I couldn't even finish it!

     Flamenco originated around Granada so we thought it would only be appropriate to go and see a traditional flamenco show!  It was in this tiny little room that once again was packed with people.  It never fails to amaze me how little personal space the Spaniards seem to need.  I don't know if they have fire codes in Spain, but if they do, we were definitely in violation!

They all seemed to be having so much fun!

     Originally we were supposed to leave Granada on Monday morning to go to spend the day in Málaga before flying out of the Málaga airport but we decided to spend more time in Granada rather than make it all the way to Málaga and have to figure out what we were doing there, how we would get there, and what to do with our bags.  It all seemed like too much work and we were loving Granada, so why not spend more time there?  We went up to the gypsy area which was absolutely gorgeous, but there really wasn't much to do up there.  We wandered around the city for the rest of the day before we had to get on a bus to Málaga.

The gypsy neighborhood!

     It was an exhausting day of traveling.  We left for Málaga at 2 in the afternoon and I didn't make it back to my apartment in Barcelona until 11:45 at night.  Exhausting, but so totally worth it.  I loved every minute of my time in Andalusia and I'm so glad I was able to spend some time there!  Unfortunately the weather wasn't the greatest when we were there, we froze the entire time.  Going to the south of Spain I expected it to be warm and sunny, but I was utterly disappointed.  Oh well, I'm hoping it will warm up here in the next couple of weeks so I can actually spend some time on the beach before leaving Barcelona!

     On a side note, tomorrow (March 9th) is my dad's birthday, so if you happen to see him or talk to him, make sure to wish him a happy birthday!  He's the best dad in the entire world and I am so very proud of him and everything that he does.  So happy birthday Dad! I love you and miss you so much!

I don't think we're in Catalunya anymore...

            This weekend was our big trip with our program to Madrid and Toledo.  In the past I have never really thought of Spain as a big country, but Madrid is surprisingly far away.  To drive there it would take about seven hours.  Luckily, we were flying. Our flight there was delayed an hour and we had no time to relax once we landed.  We immediately got on a bus and headed to Toledo, an hour away from Madrid.  Toledo used to be the capital of Spain back in the time of the Visigoths, before the Muslims conquered Spain.  It was a beautiful town with a lot of old, gorgeous buildings.  It was very interesting to me to learn that Toledo has about the same population as Appleton, but so much more culture.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Appleton and I really do miss it, but this city has a gigantic cathedral that was built one thousand years ago! 

            The first thing we did in Toledo was get lunch at a little restaurant.  So far every meal I’ve had with my program has been amazing and we’ve gotten more food than we know how to handle.  Unfortunately, this was not the case in Toledo. I ended up sitting at a table in the corner and service was horrible for us.  They helped us last and seemed to not really be concerned about getting us what we asked for.  We had to ask for more bread about six times before we were actually brought any.  We probably could have forgiven that if it wasn’t for the fact that when we got our food, grilled fish, it was freezing cold.  It honestly seemed like they had cooked it hours ago, put it in the refrigerator, and then microwaved it slightly before giving it to us.  It was awful.  Parts were warm and then other parts were almost frozen.  Luckily we had a chocolate mousse cake for dessert that was delicious!

            After our disappointing lunch we took a walking tour of the city.  Our tour guide was a cute little old woman who gave us a lot of historical information about the city and the importance of Toledo in Spain’s past.  It was all really interesting and the cathedral we went into was absolutely gorgeous.  It was built in the French style (like Notre Dame) but with a lot of Spanish influences.  I feel like I’ve been in a lot of cathedrals, basilicas, and monasteries since coming to Spain, but this was definitely one of my favorites.  Unfortunately photography was strictly prohibited inside the cathedral so you’ll just have to use your imagination. Or you can plan a trip to Toledo and check it out for yourself!

Our view of Toledo after we got off of the bus.

The outside of the cathedral.

One last look at Toledo as the sun was setting.

     After our tour of the city we had a few minutes to explore for ourselves but then we had to get on the bus back to Madrid.  It always amazes me how different cities can have completely different feels. Madrid and Barcelona feel completely different although I can’t really explain how.  Madrid almost feels more like a big city in the United States.  I think part of it is that Madrid doesn’t feel as old as Barcelona, and rightly so.  While the Romans founded Barcelona, the Moors, hundreds of years later, founded Madrid. 
     On Saturday morning we had to get up early to take a walking tour of Madrid.  We saw a lot of different sites around the center of the city.

This spot is the geographical center of Spain!

This store had thousands and thousands of fans. They were all really pretty, but also expensive.

This chocolateria (a place that sells chocolate con churros) is extremely famous in Spain.  It's open 24 hours and many celebrities go there. They had pictures on the wall of famous people such as Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz!

This restaurant is in the Guinness Book of World Records as being the oldest restaurant. It was Hemmingway's favorite restaurant.

     After our tour we got about two hours for lunch.  We were in a place with a lot of restaurants and shops so we ended up going to "El Museo de Jamon" (The Museum of Ham) and getting some ham sandwiches and walking around for a bit.  As we were walking we suddenly saw a gigantic group of Catalans in the middle of a square! I'm not sure what exactly they were doing (perhaps a rally for independence?), but they were definitely worked up about something!

It was funny to come all the way to Madrid and still see all of the Catalan nationalists here.

     After our lunch we were able to go into the royal palace.  It was absolutely gorgeous inside but photography was strictly prohibited.  The current king of Spain is very down-to-earth and chose to not live in the palace, but it is still used as a place to meet foreign dignitaries.  I was in awe the entire time we were inside. Every new room we went into seemed more and more beautiful and exquisite.

It probably didn't hurt that it was an absolutely beautiful and warm day out.

     On Sunday morning there was an optional trip to La Reina Sofia, the museum of modern art.  Even though it meant getting up earlier, I still chose to go.  I desperately wanted to see Guernica by Picasso.  I know that when my mom was in Spain she had wanted to see it but was unable to, and I couldn't let that happen again to one of the Lemke-Rochon's.  For anyone who is unaware, Guernica was painted by Picasso during World War II.  Hitler was friends with the dictator of Spain at the time, Franco, and he needed a place for his army to practice bombing.  Franco told him that he could bomb the city of Guernica in the Basque Country.  Picasso painted this to show the devastation of the civilians of Guernica.  After he painted it it was kept in the United States. At Picasso's request it was not to be returned to Spain until democracy was restored.  Democracy wasn't restored in Spain until 1975 when Franco died. Guernica returned to Spain in 1981.

Technically we weren't supposed to take pictures within the room that Guernica was held in, but I was able to sneak one so you could see it without tons of people standing in front of it.  I've seen prints of this hundreds of times, but there is nothing quite like standing in front of this gigantic painting and really seeing the horror and devastation up close.

     We had the afternoon completely free to wander around Madrid until we had to meet back at our hotel to go all together to the airport.  No one had gotten much sleep so we didn't do too much except walk around El Retiro Park and go to get some chocolate con churros.  It was a beautiful park and besides being windy, it was really nice outside.

The trees were so strange!

The park had a gigantic lake in the middle of it where you could rent rowboats.

As we were walking out of the park we saw this big house made completely of glass. I still don't know what it was for, but it was pretty cool to look at!

Inside the house there was a big pile of different items made of plastic such as laundry baskets and chairs.  It was very strange.

     It was a whirlwind of a weekend and I was very glad to finally get back to my apartment in Barcelona.  These weekend trips really take a lot out of me as we try and pack so much into so little time.  I was very glad to get to go to Madrid. Originally when I knew I wanted to study abroad in Spain I wanted to go to Madrid.  I wanted to be in a huge city (Madrid has well over twice as many people as Barcelona) and I had heard that Madrid was amazing.  After spending the weekend there, I'm now know that I'm glad I ended up picking Barcelona.  Barcelona seems to be much prettier than Madrid and the neighborhoods in Barcelona seem to be much more diverse.  

     It's also very strange to me that at the end of these trips when I return to Barcelona I actually feel like I'm going home.  A city that was completely foreign to me just a month and a half ago actually feels like home to me now and I feel completely comfortable in it. I usually have a rule for myself that if I've already traveled to someplace, I don't want to go again. I like to experience new places and cultures, but I have a feeling that Barcelona will be a place that I return to many times simply because it has turned into a home-away-from-home for me.