Journal for lcongdon

Well, I’ve been back from spring break for a few days now but with catching up on homework, planning trips for the next few weekends, starting to study for midterms, and thinking about classes for next semester, I haven’t had much time to blog. But now I’m pretty much caught up with everything so I can write a little about my spring break adventures. My parents got here (Granada) on Friday (without luggage, but you can talk to them about that) and we spent the weekend seeing the sights of Granada. On Friday they came over to my apartment to see where I live and meet my Spanish family. Luckily everyone was home, so they got to meet Carmen, Nikko, and Pablo. I had quite a job translating for everyone, but I think it went pretty well. After that I showed them around Granada a little: my school, some of the main plazas, etc. The next day we took a walk up to the Albaicín and saw a good view of the city and the Alhambra. That night we did a little tapas bar-hopping so that they could experience the wonder of free tapas in Granada. On Sunday we went to the Royal Chapel in the morning to see the crypts of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel and in the afternoon we had tickets for the Alhambra. That evening we saw our first of several Semana Santa (Holy Week) processions. These are a huge tradition in Andalucía and people come from all over to see them. The processions are like a parade with hundreds of people: penitents dressed in outfits with a striking resemblance to the KKK, marching bands, women in all black carrying rosaries, and probably about 30 men carrying a huge float-type thing with a statue of Jesus or the Virgin Mary. They walk all throughout the city and go on for anywhere from 6-12 hours, sometimes into the very early morning. There are usually 5-7 of these every day during holy week and they last from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday. I thought it was really interesting to see since it’s a tradition that’s so different than anything in the United States.

We left early Monday morning on a bus to Sevilla, the city in Spain with the most famous Semana Santa processions. We went to the cathedral, which was good because I got to see a lot more of it than when I was in Sevilla the last time. We also went on a boat tour of the Guadalquivir and walked over to the Plaza de España. We were able to see a few of the processions here, too, but there were so many people that it was sometimes hard to see and hard to get around the city with so many roads blocked off.

On Tuesday we flew from Sevilla to Paris and made our way on the metro to our hotel, which was very close to the Eiffel Tower. That first night we walked to the tower to see it all lit-up, which was really pretty. We decided not to go up in it that night, though, because it was really cold and windy and we weren’t exactly prepared for the weather. The whole time we were in France, though, it was pretty cold and windy (and sometimes rainy, too), not quite as nice as it had been in Spain (sunny and in the 60s or 70s). On Wednesday we took the train out to Versailles to see the palace. It was pretty spectacular and full of wealth and luxury. The gardens there were huge, too, but it was too windy to spend too much time in them. That night, when we were back in Paris, we went back to the Eiffel Tower and actually went up in it. It was really pretty to see the whole city lit-up at night.

Thursday morning we bought the 2-day Paris museum passes, so we spent most of the next two days hopping from one museum or monument to another. On Thursday morning we went to the Rodin Museum and Napoleon’s tomb, which was really impressive: a huge wooden coffin-like monument right under the church’s dome. After that we went to the Orsay Museum, which had a lot of interesting work from the impressionist period and around. We also walked over to the Arc de Triomphe but weren’t able to go up in it because of a worker’s strike. This was our walking day, so the next day ended up being our metro day (we learned that things seem closer on the map than they really are). Friday we started off with a trip to the Louvre, and we saw the famous pieces like Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa. The museum was so big, though, that I don’t know if we even saw a third of it after being there for about 3 hours. After this we walked to the smaller, and much more manageable, Museum de l’Orangerie, which houses Monet’s water lilies and other impressionist art, included a little of Picasso. Next, we took the bus to Notre Dame where there was a service going on since it was Good Friday. The church was really beautiful but it felt a little odd walking around with a camera in hand while there was a service being held. After leaving the church we decided not to go up into the towers because there was a huge line. While on the island in the Seine where the Notre Dame is, we stopped in the Conciergerie, the prison where people, including Marie Antoinette, were held before being sent to the guillotine. After this, we took the metro to the Montmatre area and walked up to the Sacred Heart church were there was a great view of the city. We then walked down the hill into a slightly sketchy neighborhood full of sex shops and cabarets in order to see the Moulin Rouge.

Saturday afternoon we headed back to the airport to catch our flight to Madrid. We didn’t do a whole lot that day in Madrid because it was a little rainy and cold, but we walked around a little and saw a few of the main plazas, the cathedral, and the royal palace. Sunday morning (Easter) we went to a catholic church near our hotel for mass. It was interesting to experience a catholic mass, but the service was a little hard to understand (especially for my parents who don’t know Spanish). After this, we took a walk to the park Buen Retiro, a huge park in the center of the city. It was pretty to see and there were a lot of people walking around and performers playing different instruments. I caught a bus back to Granada that afternoon and my parent’s flight left the next morning. Overall, spring break was a lot of fun but it went by so quickly. It was great to see my parents and Paris was really amazing to see. It’s interesting how Spain and France are so close but their cultures seem so different. It was a little hard to get back into the swing of classes this week, especially with mid-terms starting, but I guess that’s to be expected after a week of vacation. This weekend I’m off to Prague to visit Kelsey and Marissa, my two friends who are studying there. I’m very excited to see them but it’s hard to belief I’m leaving Granada again. I guess that’s what happens when you’re studying abroad in Europe, though – I want to visit all the different places I can while I have the chance.

Posted by Leah R Congdon at 02:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It’s hard to believe another week has already gone by and my program’s almost half-way over! This past week was not as exciting as the one before, but still some interesting things happened. On Saturday, a friend and I went up to the Sierra Nevadas for part of the afternoon. I’m not exactly sure what town we were in because the bus ticket just said “Granada to Sierra Nevada” but there were a bunch of little ski resorts and we actually made it up to the snow. The bus ride only took less than an hour. The weather was really nice, not as cold as I thought it would be, and sunny. We just walked around for awhile and found this little area that had a bunch of different activities like a (fake) toboggan ride and ski-biking (which I had never heard of before). We went on the toboggan ride which was just a track up a little of the mountain and around and then we went ice-skating. Yes, that’s right, I actually went ice-skating (outdoors) in Southern Spain. It was a lot of fun.

Sunday in Spain was Election Day, which was kind of exciting. We had talked a lot about the elections in my Social-Politics class and there have been posters covering the city for the past few weeks, so it was exciting to see what actually happened. The Election Day itself wasn’t too exciting, but Carmen got all dressed up in the late morning and she and Miguel went to vote. I thought it was kind of odd that Election Day is on a Sunday, but I guess that means that everyone has time to vote and they have over 75% participation, so I guess it works well. Anyway, they announced the winner late on Sunday night and the Socialist Party that has been in power for the past four years won again. The political system is a little different here in that the Spaniards vote for a party instead of a person and the parties get the number of seats in the congress that corresponds with the percentage of votes that they received. So, in the case of this election, the Socialist Party (PSOE) has the most seats in the congress but they have a simple majority. The other main party, the Popular Party, has only about 15 fewer seats than PSOE and then there are a bunch of smaller parties that have only a few representatives. Since PSOE has the most representatives, their leader, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, will continue to be president of Spain.

The rest of the week was pretty much the same old stuff – classes, homework, etc. Last night our program had a movie night and showed the movie Tapas which was really good, although it was full of slang so it was a little hard to understand at times. On Tuesday night, I went to a lecture at my school about Semana Santa (Holy Week) in Spain. It’s a very big deal here, especially in Andalusia, with processions every day carrying depictions of Jesus and Mary around the town. I’m excited that I’ll be able to see some of it, although I’ll miss most of the days since we’re going to Paris. Only one more class and then it’s Spring Break! I’m really excited for everything that we’re going to see: Sevilla (which has huge Holy Week celebrations), Paris, and Madrid. More on all of that when I get back after Easter!

Posted by Leah R Congdon at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Sorry it took me so long to post about my trip to Madrid, this week was pretty busy with classes and homework and I didn’t seem to have very much free time. This week just flew by and it’s hard to believe it’s practically the weekend again. Anyway, over the past (long) weekend my program took a five day trip to Madrid. We left on Wednesday morning at about 9:30 from Granada. We made fairly good time on the bus and got to Madrid at about 2:30. The first thing we did was go to the Prado Museum, one of the biggest in Spain (maybe the biggest, I’m not sure). It was really amazing with lots of famous works from the big Spanish artists like Velasquez, Goya, and El Greco along with paintings by painters from other countries, too. It was cool seeing some of the paintings that I’ve been learning about in my art history class. After about 3 hours at the museum (which wasn’t really enough to see it all) we made our way to our hotel which was close to the city center just off of Gran Via. We had a little time to relax and then had dinner at a restaurant nearby with the whole group.

The next day started off with a trip to one of the other big museums in Madrid, the Reina Sofia. The temporary exhibition there was almost all of the contents of the Picasso Museum in Paris, which I guess is being worked on right now. This was all really interesting to see since Picasso had so many different styles of painting. The most amazing, though, was Guernica, Picasso’s huge representation of the bombing of a northern Spanish city during the war. It was really breathtaking to see in person since I have seen so many pictures of it. The museum also had some paintings by Dali and Miró, and it also had a lot of modern art, which isn’t really my favorite. In the afternoon we had a historic walking tour of Madrid and saw a bunch of the famous plazas, buildings, and churches in the city. We walked by the Royal Palace and the Cathedral, which were both really interesting buildings. In the evening a couple friends and I walked to the park Buen Retiro, which is a huge park right in the middle of the city. It was dark by the time we got there, though, and we didn’t get to see a lot it.

On Friday we had an early start and took the bus to El Escorial, which was about an hour out of Madrid. El Escorial is a monastery and palace which used to be a royal getaway for King Felipe II. It’s still a monastery and is also a boarding school now. After our tour of the complex we took the bus to El Valle de los Caídos (the valley of the fallen), Franco’s memorial to the fallen in the Spanish civil war (but really just his side). It’s also where Franco is buried, right next to the altar of the huge basilica that he had built there. It’s a huge church built into the mountain with the biggest cross I’ve ever seen in my life on top of the mountain. It was really impressive but kind of gave me the creeps, especially seeing Franco’s grave with fresh flowers on it. We got back to Madrid at about 3:30 and had the rest of the afternoon free. During this free time we went back to the Royal Palace to see the inside. The royal family no longer lives there and it’s seldom used anymore for ceremonies. It was really amazing to see – every room was filled with luxury (the dining room had 15 chandeliers…). Some of it was really beautiful but kind of sickening to think of how much wealth was in that one building when so many people in the country at that time were suffering. After this we tried to make our way to another museum but ended up at the train station (which was really interesting and has a rainforest with turtles inside) and then got to the museum too late to get in.

We spent most of Saturday in Segovia, a city about an hour and a half north of Madrid. We had a guided tour of the city and saw the big historical sights like the Roman Aqueduct, a bunch of churches, and the Alcazar (castle). After the tour we went into the castle which just like a fairy tale – it was actually Walt Disney’s inspiration for the Sleeping Beauty castle. I thought Segovia was a really cute city but it was a lot smaller than Granada, and definitely smaller than Madrid. Once we got back to Madrid we actually made it to the other museum we had tried to go to the other day, Thyssen-Bornemisza. It had a lot of impressionist artwork, which was interesting to see, but we only had about an hour there so we didn’t see the whole thing.

On the last day we stopped in Toledo, a small city about an hour south of Madrid. It was an absolutely beautiful city, and an absolutely beautiful day – about 25 degrees Celsius. We had the whole day here free to see whatever we wanted. It was a really interesting city because the three different cultures/religions that coexisted in Spain before the reconquista were very obvious. We visited two of the really old synagogues in the Jewish quarter of town and then walked over to the Muslim quarter and went in the old mosque. There is also a big cathedral that we saw but didn’t go into and a castle, which we also didn’t make it to. The whole city was really pretty and had so much history. It was really interesting. We left about 4:30 or so and made it back to Granada at about 8:45, just in time for dinner.

Overall, it was a really fun and interesting trip. I really liked the city of Madrid. Even though it was a busy city it seemed a lot smaller than I thought it would be. The main city center was pretty condensed and we were able to walk to everywhere we wanted to go in the city.

Posted by Leah R Congdon at 09:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)