Update from Spain
It’s been awhile again, so there’s quite a bit to tell about what I’ve been up to in Spain. Over the weekend of April 4-7, I went to Northern Spain, the Basque Country, with a few friends. We left late on Friday, so we didn’t really get to see any of Bilbao that day. On Saturday we took the bus to San Sebastian, a little beach town about an hour from Bilbao where we met up with some other people from our group who had gotten there a day earlier than us. We were really lucky with the weather that day because it rains a lot in the north (that’s why it’s called Green Spain) but Saturday was beautiful without a cloud in the sky. We spent most of the afternoon on the beach (Playa de la Concha, one of the most beautiful beaches in Spain according to the guide books – and I’d have to agree). Later that day we walked up one of the hills surrounding the beach where there is an old castle/fortress and a huge statue of Jesus. I’m not sure when the statue was added, but the combination of it and the canons all around the fortress was a little odd. That night we tried some “pinxos,” the Basque version of tapas. San Sebastian is famous for its food and the seafood pinxos we had were delicious.
The next day we headed back to Bilbao and went to the Guggenheim Museum in the afternoon. The museum was interesting and had a lot of different types of art, mostly modern, surreal, and contemporary. The actual building itself was probably the most interesting, though, with its curved, metallic walls. A lot of the architecture in Bilbao was pretty modern, which was a lot different from most of the other cities I’ve seen in Spain. We spent the rest of the day and the next day just wandering around the city. There wasn’t really a whole lot to see in Bilbao, but the city was really pretty and it was nice to see some actual grass and greenness. Ali and I spent the whole trip back to Granada studying for our art history test that we had the next morning, which wasn’t really fun, but I think the test went pretty well for both of us.
The rest of that week was fairly uneventful besides the test on Tuesday. On Wednesday evening, my program had another movie night and we watched Jamón, Jamón, an interesting, but very strange movie, like most Spanish films. It was Penelope Cruz’s first major role and also had a very young Javier Bardem in it, so that was kind of fun to see. The DELE test is getting closer every day, so on Friday we had practice oral tests. Mine went OK, but I definitely need to practice more before the actual test at the end of May.
This past Saturday, my program had a day trip to Córdoba, a city about 3 hours from Granada. We had a little free time when we first got there, so a few of us went to the castle of the Reyes Catolicas, where the inquisition was held. We couldn’t really go into too many of the buildings, but the gardens were really pretty. After that, we reunited with the group and went to the Arab baths, where we did the whole treatment. In the baths, which are restored but basically the same idea as long, long ago when they were first built, there are three rooms: a cold room, a tepid room, and a hot room. Each room has baths or a pool and you’re supposed to move from one to another to relax, open your pores, etc. We also each got a 10 minute massage, which was really nice. The whole thing was very relaxing and a lot of fun. After this, we had a tour of the Mosque of Córdoba, which was later converted into a cathedral. It was interesting to see because we’d talked a lot about it in my Islamic Culture class. After about an hour and a half there, we got back on the bus and headed back to Granada. I wish we had had more time in Córdoba because I feel like we only saw one little part of the city and didn’t really have time to explore much of it.
On Sunday there was a bull fight in Granada that our program took us to. It was a benefit festival for down-syndrome so it wasn’t quite as big as when it’s the city’s fair (the toreadors didn’t wear their pretty costumes with rhinestones and ballet slippers and the bulls were supposedly a little smaller, although they were still pretty big). I thought that the bull fight was really interesting, although it’s kind of hard to say that I actually liked seeing six bulls get killed. The environment and the crowd was really fun to see, though, and it’s such a big part of the Spanish tradition that I felt like I had to see one while I’m here. Plus, after the first one, it wasn’t that hard to watch and the toreadors were really talented and even elegant at times with their different moves.
Tuesday I had my last mid-term test in my Islamic Culture class, although it’s quite a bit past when the actual middle of the semester was. It’s nice to be done with tests until the end of the semester but it’s hard to believe that the end is coming so soon. Sometimes it feels like I’ve been here forever but at other times it feels like I just got here. I only have a little over a month left of my program and I know it’s going to go really fast. I just hope that I can see and do everything that I want to in Granada and Spain before I have to go.