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.

Praha/Prague/Praga

            I had the time of my life this weekend. I got to see one of my really good friends from McDaniel, Mara, and I also got to go to one of the most beautiful cities in the world, Prague!  My trip didn’t start out all that great though; it was a bit of a journey through hell to get there. 

            First of all, the weather in Barcelona has been amazing. Every day it’s sunny and warm.  I really can’t believe it’s the middle of winter here.  But of course, on the day I leave it’s pouring rain.  I had to get on a bus in order to get to the airport.  Unfortunately the bus apparently doesn’t come all that often and I had to stand out in the pouring rain for about twenty minutes before one came to take me to the airport.  I was positively drenched by the time I got on the bus.  So I finally got to the airport and everything was going fine.  My first flight was taking me to Geneva on Swiss Air.  That was the one good thing about my journey to Prague: Swiss Air is amazing.  My first flight was a little over an hour long but we all still got sandwiches on really good bread with turkey, hard boiled egg, and cheese and then a piece of Swiss chocolate. Delicious!  I fly short flights all the time between Maryland and Wisconsin, but Southwest never offers anything like that!  After I arrived in Geneva was when things really got bad.  I knew I had a twelve-hour layover until my next flight in the morning, but I severely underestimated how long twelve hours really is.  First of all, there is absolutely nothing to do in the Geneva airport past 10 o’clock at night.  I had to go through customs and wait outside security the whole night.  I had loaded some TV shows on my computer so I watched those for a bit but before long my computer started to die so I had to stop that.  I tried my hardest to make myself comfortable on the cold, plastic chairs, but it was an impossible task.  There was a group of Spaniards behind me that were yelling, running around, doing cartwheels and clapping.  I already had a headache and all of this noise was not helping me to fall asleep.  I ended up doing what seemed to make the most sense at the time: curling up on the floor and using my jacket as a pillow.  I probably looked like a homeless person. I was curled around all my stuff because I was terrified of falling asleep and getting everything stolen.  I was also shaking because it was absolutely freezing. I’m pretty sure they didn’t have any sort of heat in the section of the airport I was in.  I didn’t end up falling asleep at all.  I was miserable.  Around 5 in the morning the entire airport opened up and I was able to go through security.  I made it through with no problem, found a little café and bought myself some breakfast, and then sat down to wait the remaining five hours.  My flight was supposed to depart at 10:10 so I checked on it around 9:00 and it was delayed!  My twelve-hour layover turned into a thirteen-hour one!  After all of that, I finally made it on the plane and made it into Prague.  (I did pass out on the plane ride from Geneva to Prague so I got about an hour and a half of sleep). 

            Since I was only going to be in Prague for the weekend I didn’t want to waste any time on catching up with sleep. I wanted to see the city!  I met Mara at our hostel and after I put all of my stuff away, we headed out to find some food!  We found a cute little place and decided to both get entrees and share them.  We got some gnocchi with a basil cream sauce and a more traditional Czech entrée with sauer kraut and these dumpling things with pork inside of them.  It was all absolutely delicious!  We were so full I thought we were going to have to roll ourselves home.  Afterwards we went to a huge shopping center because I needed to buy some shampoo and face wash (I couldn’t take it in my carry-on).  The shopping center was gigantic!  It was really hard getting used to the prices here. $1 = 17CZK.  Doing all the conversions in my head was a lot more difficult than when I have to convert the Euro! 

            So Mara has a friend from Prague that gave us some suggestions for places to go at night.  We decided to check one of them out on Friday night.  It was a little underground bar with a tiny dance floor. It seemed like a really good place to go to meet locals; it wasn’t touristy at all.  It was a pretty cool place and we stayed there for a couple of hours, just talking, catching up after not seeing each other for months.  The one problem with bars in Prague is that they don’t have any kind of smoking restrictions.  People were smoking everywhere, right in our faces.  All of my clothes from the whole trip smell awful because of that. 

            Our first night in the hostel was interesting, to say the least.  When we got back there was a group of four boys in the room we were staying in.  We told them that we wanted to go to bed now because we were trying to get up early in the morning and we would appreciate if they kept it down whenever they got back. At this point it was one in the morning, so it’s not like we were asking them to be quiet at a ridiculously early time.  They said that was fine and then left to go to a bar or something.  They got back at 4:30.  I know this because they came in screaming and yelling.  I was infuriated.  I had gotten an awful night’s sleep the night before and we were supposed to be getting up at 7:30.  All I wanted to do was sleep!  They were obviously extremely drunk. They even started to play music on their laptops!  It seemed to take them forever to quiet down and go to sleep, and even then they snored!  So I was finally able to fall back asleep when I was jolted awake by the sound of someone throwing up mere feet from my bed.  I opened my eyes to get a lovely glimpse of the boy who was sleeping in the bed above mine standing in nothing but tighty-whities puking up everything in his stomach.  Suffice it to say, I was not pleased. 

            Luckily the city of Prague is beautiful enough that I was able to forget all of that and enjoy our Saturday sight-seeing.  We started the day off at a market where they had endless supplies of bags, scarves, jewelry, and anything else you could possibly ask for.  We learned quickly that they are used to bargaining. I got a scarf for myself that was originally 250CZK down to 120CZK.  After the market we decided to go on a free walking tour of the city.  We got to see so much and learn so much about the history of Prague and the Czech Republic.  The Czech Republic or Czechoslovakia is a country we, as Americans, don’t learn much about in school, but it really is a fascinating country.  For example, instead of hanging or shooting the people they wanted to kill, they would throw them out of windows onto spikes sticking out of the ground. It’s called defenestration.  While other countries have also used this technique, it all started in Prague!  We also learned that during World War II, as part of Hitler’s final solution, he was planning on using Prague’s Jewish section as a sort of museum to Judaism after he had succeeded in killing all of them.  As someone who has always been fascinated by World War II and Holocaust history, it was amazing to me to both learn this and to also be standing in the place where this was supposed to happen.

            One unpleasant thing about Prague was the temperature.  I’ve gotten so used to the weather in Barcelona that it was absolutely freezing for me!  It was in the 20s the entire time we were there and it even snowed on Saturday!  I haven’t seen snow since I was in Wisconsin!  In order to combat the cold they sell “hot wine” almost every forty feet it seemed like. I was very intrigued by this and so I decided to get one on Saturday afternoon.  It was served in a little plastic cup (almost like a solo cup) so that I could take it with us as we walked.  It was actually pretty good. It’s wine mixed with a bunch of spices and then heated up, also known as mulled wine in other parts of the world.  It felt good holding the cup as my hands were absolutely frozen!

            After our long day of walking around, we decided to get dinner at a place that our hostel recommended to us.  It was a cute little restaurant with traditional Czech food. Luckily they had English translations on the menu otherwise we would’ve had no clue what we were ordering!  The food was all really good and we had a great time at the restaurant.  We actually ended up staying for over three hours!  When we finally realized what time it was we rushed out in order to get back to the hostel so that we could figure out what we were going to do for the rest of our night.

            We ended up finding a club to go dancing in, which is exactly what we had been looking for.  The clubs in Czech seemed to be a lot smaller than the ones in Barcelona.  I’m not sure why this would be, but the one we ended up at was pretty cool either way!  It was under a hotel and the walls were all stone and it was very cool looking.  We ended up meeting two boys from Switzerland, Raphael and William.  I love meeting people from countries I’ve never been to.  It’s always interesting to learn about their countries and to also get their perspective on America.  Raphael told me that during our last elections there were signs for Obama all over in Switzerland and when he won there were all sorts of celebrations.  He also was under the impression that America has very good food. We definitely do have good food in a lot of places, but I feel like we’re more known for our fast food and growing (no pun intended) obesity problem, so that was a surprise for me to hear.  Although he explained that in Switzerland, if he were to order a steak at a restaurant, it would cost him around $40. So I guess from that perspective, America seems pretty cheap!

            Back at the hostel that night we thankfully got back after the other boys staying in the room so we didn’t have to worry about them waking us up again. And as tempting as it was to make a lot of noise and wake them up, we were respectful and very quiet.  The next day we headed across Prague’s famous Charles Bridge.  It’s a gorgeous bridge with different statues alongside it.  They have different vendors all along it too, so it’s a good place to go and get some cheaper, yet still authentic, souvenirs.  After the bridge we went to a place recommended to me by (see if you can follow this) my best friend from home’s roommate’s sister who studied abroad in Prague.  It’s called the John Lennon Wall and it was created after his death as a celebration of both the Beatles and as a sort of movement for peace in Czechoslovakia.  It was an amazing wall of graffiti that is still growing and changing today. Mara and I even added a little something to it!  Right next to the Lennon Wall was a bridge with a ton of locks on it.  They looked really cool so I took some pictures, but I didn’t understand what we were looking at until I looked it up afterwards.  Apparently you’re supposed to go there with your true love, engrave your initials on a lock, lock it onto the posts, and then throw the key into the river.  I love little traditions like that. They’re so fun! 

            After the Lennon wall we walked around some more and saw the Prague Castle and everything. Unfortunately we had to cut our day a bit short because Mara’s flight was leaving that afternoon. 

            My flight wasn’t until the next morning. Even though I had an absolutely amazing time in Prague and I would do it again in a heartbeat, I can tell you one thing for certain. I hate traveling in countries where I don’t speak a word of their language. It’s incredibly stressful and scary.  I was supposed to take a tram and then get on a bus to the airport. For whatever reason the tram I was on stopped randomly before the stop I was supposed to get off at and everyone got off. The woman driving the tram said something that I guess explained why everyone was getting off, but I couldn’t understand a word. All I could do was follow everyone else!  I had no idea where I was or how to get to the bus I needed to get on or anything. And I was carrying around all of my luggage and I was freezing!  I was beginning to panic thinking that I was never going to make it to the airport and I was going to miss my fight and never back it back to Barcelona and subsequently never make it back home and I’d be stuck in Prague forever. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Prague, but I certainly didn’t want to get stuck there.  Thankfully there was an extremely nice woman at a corner store I went into that spoke limited English and she put down all of her groceries to usher me out of the store and show me where I could get on the right bus.  I am so incredibly grateful to her as I was close to tears.  Thankfully I made it to the airport in plenty of time and was able to make it back to sunny Barcelona perfectly fine after that!

Our hostel was called the Art Hole Hostel and it had all sorts of interesting artwork on the walls!

More artwork in the hostel.

This is part of the market we went to, but it was huge! Everywhere we turned there were more stalls!

Our tour guide from our walking tour of the city. He was very funny!  I also that it was funny that he was Scottish and Mara's studying abroad in Scotland. She came all the way to Prague only to spend time with more Scots!

This is one of Prague's main tourist attractions, the astrological clock.  Apparently after the designer of this clock finished making it, they burned his eyes out with hot pokers so that he would never be able to make a clock like this again for another city.  

Another one of Prague's claims to fame is that Franz Kafka is from here.  He's the author of strange books such as Metamorphosis.  

This is one of the old synagogues in the Jewish section of Prague.

All of the buildings were simply gorgeous. I loved the architecture. 

More beautiful buildings, such as the Prague castle, the biggest castle in the world!

I loved all the gargoyles!

This was my traditional Czech dish. Potato croquettes with chicken stuffed with bleu cheese and ham.

Some of the "love locks" along the bridge.

The John Lennon Wall!

It was filled with Beatles quotes like this.

Me leaning against the wall wearing the scarf I bought at the market on Saturday.

Mara & Autumn 2011 :)

The sky was absolutely beautiful and there were some beautiful views of the whole city.

This is the Charles Bridge from afar. I loved how the light was breaking through the clouds here.

            Stay tuned for details about my adventures in Madrid and Toledo next weekend…

Delicious food and gorgeous views.

I'm sorry it's been so long since I've updated, it's midterms next week for me and I had a huge project due last week that consumed all my time.

But anyways, onto the actual update.  Last Wednesday our program leader, Rich, took us all out to eat at a traditional Galician restaurant. Galicia is the region of Spain just north of Portugal with a very distinct culture.  The food was absolutely delicious and we had a great time.  We ordered about five appetizers to share between us and were brought so much food that I almost didn't have room for my main entree!  In my opinion the best appetizer we got was the octopus.  Galicia is located right on the coast and seafood is very common there.  The octopus was just pan-fried and served in small pieces over some potatoes.  I love any kind of seafood and this was just delicious!  For my main course I got calamari, one of my absolute favorites!  It was a huge pile and I did my best to devour most of it!  The boy sitting across from me, Max, ordered what was just described as an assortment of meat. The amount of food he got could have fed an entire family of six quite easily.  There was pork, chicken, ribs, lamb, beef, and who knows what else!  For dessert we ordered some flan (my first actual flan in Spain!), an almond tort, and miel y mató (honey and cheese).  The miel y mató was my favorite. The cheese was almost the consistency of ricotta and (according to my research) is made out of sheep or goat's milk and eaten fresh on the day it's made.  I don't know if I'll be able to find it in America, but I'm definitely going to try!

Last Saturday some of my friends and I decided to take a little day trip to Montserrat.  Montserrat is a mountain about an hour away from here and a popular pilgrimage spot for the locals.  You take a train out of the city and then a cable-car up the side of the mountain to get to a little tourist area that has a museum, a cafeteria, some little shops, and a monastery.  According to legend, the Virgin Mary visited this monastery and there's a statue in her honor there.  You can go and touch the statue and say a prayer if you want, which Teresa (my roommate) and I did.  Everything on top of the mountain was absolutely breathtaking. I actually teared up a little bit when we first walked into the monastery.  I know I said this before in reference to La Sagrada Familia, but it really is just amazing for me to be in a country so deeply rooted in Catholicism.  I went to Catholic school for nine years and learned all about the history of the church but you really don't get a true sense of how old and important this faith is until you're in some of these places where the people have been worshipping for hundreds and hundreds of years.  After we went into the monastery we hiked around the mountain for a couple hours enjoying the view.

The cable-car we took up the mountain.

The view from the town area.

The town/tourist area.

Inside the monastery.

The statue of the Virgin Mary you could touch.

There were rows and rows of these prayer candles along stone walls. It was absolutely beautiful.

Some views from our hike around the mountain.

The weather was nothing short of perfect.

Me!

The town area as seen from the other side of the mountain.

The cross of San Miguel, you could see if from all over the mountain.

My friends Teresa, Brianna, Brenda, and me.

Pictures cannot even begin to capture how beautiful it really was.  I love being in Barcelona because of the close proximity to both the Mediterranean Sea and the mountains.  It's the best of both worlds!

A Day in the Life.

This past Saturday me and my friends decided to get up really early (6:45! The horror!) to take in Barcelona's gorgeous weather and some of the wonderful sites.  Everyone who comes to Barcelona sees La Sagrada Familia, the famous church started in 1882 by Gaudí. It's normally really expensive to get inside (it's how they're paying to finish the church), but on Saturdays in January it was free! Since it was the last free day, it's how we decided to start our day!

The outside of it always reminds me of a sandcastle . The detail is absolutely incredible!

My faith has always been very important to me and to see this gorgeous church still being built today was an absolutely breathtaking experience. 

This is the ceiling above the altar letting in sunlight.

The doors of the church had the gospels of John and Matthew engraved on them depicting the last days of Jesus' life.

I loved how the stained glass windows cast a rainbow on the pillars inside.

I can't wait to come back in 30 years when I can see it without all of the cranes and construction equipment!

 After seeing all the glory of La Sagrada Familia we went to a little cafe to get some coffee and decide what we were going to do with the rest of our day.  After some debate we decided to pack a picnic and go up onto Montjuic and explore around there. Montjuic is a mountain right on the edge of Barcelona where you can see gorgeous views of the city along with little parks, museums, and the olympic stadium.

This is the park we decided to eat lunch in.  It was absolutely gorgeous and the five of us were the only ones in the entire park!

Our picnic consisted of sandwiches made out of fresh baguettes with pesto and romesco sauce on them, fresh mozzarella, and spinach.  We also brought along strawberries and oranges. After all that delicious food we laid around in the sun for a couple of hours. It was so much fun!

We walked around Montjuic a bit more after that until it started to look like rain. We could see the rain already starting on the other side of the city!

Teresa, Julia, me, and Robyn with the view of the city in the background.

 After the rain started we decided to all split up and meet up later on in the night for tapas. I've been in Spain for almost a month and this was my first time actually getting tapas!  We found a little restaurant in the gothic quarter that had absolutely delicious tapas. We ordered patatas bravas (fried potatoes), croquettes, shrimp, bread, calamari, peppers, and mushrooms.

This the spicy shrimp we got.  The sauce was so delicious we ended up dipping our patatas bravas in it!

I loved being able to get tapas at this little restaurant we found.  Our waiter had the most ridiculous looking mustache and even though the rest of his hair was grey, his sideburns and mustache were pitch black.  We spent the entire dinner trying to decide if he colored them with a sharpie or shoe polish.  All in all, it was a great day spent all around Barcelona.