Seville and Granada

Southern Spain is beautiful! Some friends and I jumped on the train and headed down to Seville.  After hearing all sorts of wonderful things from Jess, who studied there last spring, I was very excited to go.  The architecture was beautiful and we couldn't have asked for better weather!

 

Plaza de España was definitely my favorite. 

 

  

Bull fights are especially popular in Seville.  Although we didn't go see one, Jeff was kind enough to act it out for our tour group.

 

Then we scooted off to Granada, a short train ride away.  Granada is an incredible mix of Islamic, Jewish, and Christian culture.  It was the final muslim stronghold in Spain during the Christian conquering.  The mix of architeqture was fascinating, but I think I liked the 4 am arabic food best! But beware, some English translations aren't quite right...

La Alhambra is an enormous palace on top of the hill overlooking the entire city.  The gardens and towers were gorgeous.

 

 I can't decide if this is the best job, or the worst.  The carousel requires someone to manually bike the entire ride.  Paid to excersize? Not bad.  Unfortunately it gets pretty hot down in Southern Spain.

And lastly, this might be the prettiest ice-cream display I've ever seen.  Scrumptious too! Off to Barcelona for the weekend! yahooo!

 

Madrileña

 As the lovely weather continues, I've had a great time scampering all around Madrid. This is the lake in Parque Retiro, a lovely place to sit and watch hundreds of rollerbladers.  I always laughed in highschool Spanish classes when the vocab lists included the verb to skate "patinar".  It seemed very impractical and useless... until I arrived here, that is. 

 

One of the most amazing things about not spending September and October in Claremont is that autumn actually almost exists here.  While it's still 80 degrees and lovely each day, at least the trees change colors!

 Parque Retiro has tons of Buckeyes.  Brings me back to the good ole days in Bear Creek Park.

 Also, the benches encourage excersize! It's quite simple to sit on a bench in the park, read the news paper, and pedal away.

 These pretty black swans in the pond love munching on bread crumbs. 

 and finally, big brother Nate came to visit! We went with Steven and a few of my friends to a great restaurant where the waiter brought raw meat and several hot plates to the table.  We then cooked our pieces of ox to a salty perfection. YUM!

Sights and tastes from around Madrid

After a lovely summer of vino-tinto, I've moved on to vino-blanco and sangria-- the chosen drinks in Spain.  These scrumptious grapes are from the winery we toured up in the north of Spain.

Another local favorite is chocolate con churros.  Aka, melted dark chocolate bars with hot greasy churros to dunk.  It's Trouble with a Capital-T, as noted by the aftermath of the food I'm eating. #StruggleBus.

I passed this cafe the other day on one of my walks around the city.  Seems like a great place to me! On a blackboard they suggest a book of the day accompanied by a drink to fit the mood.  Genius! (For you non-Spanish speakers: "Books and wine")

Alright, enough with food-- for now.  Madrid is full of intriguing architecture.  This building is suspended in mid-air by a few poles.  Hard to tell in this picture, but fascinating in real life. 

This church sits right above the Prado Museum.  Lovely to sit and look at while Spanish guitars are played gently in the background.

This casual tower/castle building is 2 blocks from my home-stay.  It's the government center of transportation.  Normally I'd think a transportation building wouldn't deserve this kind of beauty, but the metro system here is phenomenal; in this case, I might make an exception. 

 

My favorite park in the city is Parque Oeste (West Park).  It is almost completely deserted all the time and has a darling creek.  Plenty of grassy hills make for wonderful "log-rolling" and sunshine-siestas.

 

 

And finally, today we went on a biking tour of the river area.  Though a bit more history and a bit less biking than we originally anticipated, it was a lovely afternoon! Neat bridges, wonderful company, and fabulous weather. 

We passed this NBA set up, too. No Kyle Singler sightings yet, but I'm keeping a look-out.  Luckily, his height will help him stand out from the crowd when I do find him!

Host family

Without a doubt I have the most adorable host family in the world.  Every night before dinner my housemate and I sit at the kitchen table and read aloud to our Spanish parents.  They want us to improve our speaking abilities and accents and fully insist on us reading each and every night.  This week we are reading a children's mystery book... it's getting pretty intense, not going to lie!

Also, there is not one person in the Spanish speaking world who can understand/say my name (I was simply called "Oregon" by some friends in Argentina), my host family is no exception.  I loved the meal they left for me--"Delsy". *sigh*. 

Castles!

Alright, it's official: castles are cool! Last weekend, some friends and I ventured off to Segovia and Toledo, small ancient cities an hour-ish bus ride from Madrid.  (Those hour trips were most certainly nicer than our 10 hour Argentine bus rides!)  Although rather touristy, it was fun to wander through these ancient buildings filled with stunning stained glass, enormous murals, copious amounts of gold, and ancient battle uniforms.  The fortresses had large ditches for moats (although currently dry).  The sangria and tapas afterwards topped it off nicely!

This last one is of an ancient Roman aqueduct.  Pretty nifty!

It's a rough life...

I never though I would like eating octopus ("pulpo").  After a lovely week up in the northern Spain (Galicia) where I had pulpo at just about every meal, I can surely say I LOVE IT! This simple recipe involves just a touch of olive oil, salt, and pepper.  Delish!

We were spoiled rotten on our program sponsored trip staying at arguably the finest parrador (5 star hotel) in Spain, just meters from the Cathedral where Jesus' apostle Santiago lies.  4 course meals twice a day ensured we could just roll from church to church.  We stayed in the town of Santiago de Compostela, a famous pilgrimage sight for those searching for a life-changing experience.  In fact, my buddy Ari Davis walked for two months this summer from the south of Spain culminating in Santiago de Comp. as his summer project.  While our group was not nearly as enthusiastic as Ari, we did enjoy a lovely 8km stroll on the road from France near the end, and celebrated that night as if we had completed the whole endeavor!

  

Here's one of our casual lunch spots; private beach in a gorgeous resort.  The salt level of the water was so high that we floated without even trying.  (1. With fellow CMC-er Jeff   3. My house-mate Becca)

We also scrambled all over ancient Celtic Castro ruins (from before and during the Roman invasion).  The circles of stone are the foundations of what used to be huts.  Naturally, my favorite part was scurrying up to the top of the giant rocks to enjoy the view!

My Spanish is coming along well and I started classes today, but more on that later!

And so it begins...

Well, I'm all settled in for the semester! Unfortunately I don't have too many pictures to share yet, but I'm headed to the beach for the week with my program and should definitely have some after that!

Emily and Chef Kevin (read: Harry & David mix) made me delicious birthday pancakes before we met up with the lovely Jessica Reid for lunch.  Later, I was able to celebrate with the Claremont kids before leaving!

Here is my room in Madrid.  I have the room to myself, but one of my good friends lives in the next room, which is great for chatting and planning during the siesta.  It's a really nice apartment in a safe neighborhood with easy access to the miraculously clean metro.  

On my way here I had a short layover in Frankfurt, Germany.  Thanks to some German roots somewhere down the line, all of the attendants spoke to me in German until they realized about ten words in that I didn't understand a thing they had said.  Nevertheless, this little American girl finally felt cool after spending several months trying to fit in despite everyone immediately correctly assuming that I was a foreigner.

Also, Gross-family Google+ "Hangouts" are the coolest.  Here's mom showing off her fresh produce straight from the garden!

Off to the beach! Haluego!