Morocco, penitents, and beaches

I've been putting off this entry because now I've gone and let too many interesting things build up, and I'm not sure where to start. I guess I left you off right around the time I was gearing up for Morocco; my program, because I'm here for the year, payed to send me on a program called Morocco Exchange, which aims to provide students with a more culturally sensitive and informative trip to Morocco than what they would find by going as tourists. It was a four-day trip which started with my train ride down to the drug and illegal-immigrant capital of Spain, Algeciras. It's just a grimy little port city, though we were recommended to spend the night there as the ferry to Tangiers left so early the next morning. There were four girls from my program spending the night there as well - they decided to take the bus. After a quick turn on a few websites, I found that the train there was faster and cheaper, so I headed in on my own, though nothing could have prepared me for the family which surrounded me about two hours into the trip, whose mother had determined that the most effective way to deal with her children's temper-tantrums was to provide them with recorders and large, sausage-filled sandwiches which were ideal to spew onto unsuspecting travelers.

The group, an eclectic combination of sixteen kids from various universities in the US, traveled to Tangiers, Asilah (a tiny seaside resort), Rabat (Morocco's capital), and Chefchaouen, a white village that looked exactly like many of the towns surrounding Granada, and which, not very coincidentally, is sponsored by the regional government of Andalucía in Spain. As it turns out, many of the Jews expelled from Spain fled to Morocco, and until very recently, a hybrid Yiddish-Spanish (called Ladino) could still be heard in the town, despite the latter influence from the French. Some highlights of the trip would be my beachfront camel ride on the side of the highway; the lively conversation between four of us and two Moroccan English-translation students in a Rabat cafe, which proceeded very nicely until one of the Moroccans told us that the September 11th attacks were staged and that no Jewish people died in them, which greatly upset the Jewish studies major in our group - I became suddenly and entirely engrossed in my mint tea; and my homestay with a Moroccan family in Rabat. My roommate and I didn't have mountains of food with the family, but what we had was good. We (the two of us and our host-brother, which is to say, the men) were always served by the women of the household, who, in my opinion, were treated a bit like servants, though this seemed to be the norm. The family had no real running water and only a "Turkish Toilet" - read: a hole in the ground. We all bonded very quickly when, on the second night, we went to a hammam, a communal, Turkish bath. Here's the thing - in the medina, the old section of Rabat where all of the homestay families live, running water isn't that common. This is why it is common to go to the your favorite local bath house every time you might want to shower, about twice a week.

My roommate and I, accompanied by our host-brother, entered through a vault-like door into a three-room complex, clad in only our underwear - this is normal. (We later found out that the girls, in their own hammam, were made to go in wearing only the lower part of their underwear - the women's hammam, in Islamic cultures, is a literal opportunity to "let their hair down" and gossip.) We were immediately stared at - of course, as the only two albinos there - by the throngs of naked/similarly clad 400-pound Arab men sitting on the floor performing strange acts of personal hygiene. The furthest is the hot room, which is very hot due to the heated floors, and has a fountain flowing with scalding hot water. The first step in a hammam is to collect about four buckets per person and to wash them out with with the hot water. Then, take one bucket and clean your area of the floor with it - one sits in a hammam, as I would soon find out. This leaves three buckets filled with boiling water. The sitting on the painfully-hot floor can take up to an hour - one wants to be nice and sweaty - though our host brother sped up the process by dumping a bucket of water onto each of us. I screamed and then died a little bit inside, which just provoked more laughs from the men doing two-person Pilates in the corner - it is also normal to stretch, often with a partner, in a hammam. After you are sufficiently sweaty and have been sure that the welts on your skin will actually turn to third-degree burns, you move to the second room, the warm room. You move here, along with your remaining two buckets of now merely scorching-hot water, to take your tar-soap packet and suds up. This should take 20 minutes or so. After you are sufficiently sudsy, your hammam parter takes a glove covered with what I can only describe as sandpaper, and proceeds to exfoliate your entire body. A hammam employee can be hired to do this, you can take a friend with you, or you can find a stranger there and agree to exfoliate each other. Remember - you are now covered in pine-scented tar suds, badly burned after your experience in the first, hot room, and severely dehydrated. In the case of me and my roommate, you are also having trouble functioning after having been force-fed pasta three minutes before leaving for this experience. So. The exfoliation continues until just before blood is drawn from the skin. My host-brother delighted in being able to show my roommate and me the dead skin scraped off of our backs. The girls later reported that their "exfoliation partners" scrubbed everywhere that wasn't covered, which leads me to believe that this was yet more of a traumatic experience for them. "You see?" cheerfully lectured my host-brother, "you in America, you just take showers, but this is why your skin is unhappy. You have to come to a hammam to be really clean!" In some ways, this is true. I have never been more clean in my life, though my experience was far from over. My host-brother left Dan and me in the warm room after his - and it really was a kind gesture on his part - body scrub treatment, to go stretch with a friend. Dan and I, curled up on the floor in the fetal position in a pile of our own dead skin cells, realized that we had to move into the cold room, or risk melting to the floor. As soon as we got there, now with a fresh bucket each, we found the cold water fountain. Salvation! We stood in the corner, dumping bucket after bucket of frigid water over our heads to rinse off the - now very dirty - soap suds. I was so happy to be lowering my body temperature, and so much in shock from the change, that I didn't notice the large man several feet away on the floor whom I was showering with my cold water - he was less than thrilled, apparently, though he only expressed this in Arabic to his friend across the room, who was currently holding his four year-old, naked son on the ground to scrub him. I finally understood when the father, in a kind, paternal way, motioned with his hand at me and Dan to sit. "Douche," he said from the floor while pointing at the ceiling, using the French word for shower, "hammam," he smiled and laughed while slapping his hands onto the wet tile floor and shaking his legs. I can't really describe that moment. In that gesture, I felt really accepted there, if not as someone who belonged there, then as a guest whom everyone was interested in showing the ropes. I felt that way throughout my time in Morocco - though the culture and country, where the state religion is Islam, is different than anything I'd ever experienced, I felt welcome and safe. Islam doesn't allow the drinking of alcohol, which lends a very different feel to nightlife. It requires its followers to pray five times a day, which structures the day in a well-organized, family-friendly schedule (except, perhaps, for the daybreak call to prayer which never failed to wake me up, what with the mosque and minaret next to our house). It wasn't my culture, but I felt less judged as a tourist than I do in Spain. It made me think.

One of the most memorable meals was in Chefchaouen; the group went to an upscale restaurant where I was served tortilla, chicken tangine wrapped in fried dough, covered with sugar and cinnamon. Think fried dough with chicken. Very, very good, but also very, very bizarre. Between that meal and the buckets-full of sugar I consumed in the ever-present tea there, I've developed approximately eight new cavities.This is our first day in Tangiers - I love the picture because it highlights the strange relationship in Morocco between French and Arabic. Interestingly, Arabic isn't indigenous to Morocco, but rather the Berber language, of which there are three main dialects in the country. Also, the Arabic there isn't "classical" Arabic, but a Moroccan dialect. I got along nicely with French in the interior of the country, but Spanish is more prevalent in the North. Pretty confusing linguistically.
More Tangiers.
There was a baby camel as well, which was falling all over itself to keep up with its mom. The scariest part of the whole experience is when the camel "kneels" for you to get off, because it starts with just its front legs. This leaves the rider hanging on for dear life at a rakish angle, while the camel's back legs are still fully stretched.
We stopped to at a tiny, isolated village in the Rift mountains to have lunch at a family's home. After we ate, we climbed to the top of a mountain with the local kids, who were very happy to make us crowns of flowers, even though we couldn't really communicate with them. The older of the two boys here spoke a little French, which helped a bit, because myself and one other girl on the trip could translate. Everything went fine until we attempted to ask one of the little ones how old he was, when he burst into tears and fled down the mountain.


My chicken "tortilla."
Chefchaouen, which is partially famous for the beautiful blue color of the lower parts of the walls there. This is an awful picture, but you get the idea.

My arrival back in Granada coincided with the start of Semana Santa (Holy Week), which is the weeklong celebration of Easter, a bigger holiday here than Christmas. Semana Santa also brought my Mom over from the US, with whom I was able to reenact one of those dramatic reunion scenes in an airport as I waited amongst all the limo drivers for her to emerge from customs. Easter here isn't at all like in the States - the idea is to be in the streets celebrating and drinking, not sitting at home with family. My host mom from last semester, who made my mom and me paella on Easter Sunday, told me the Spanish have a saying about their two biggest holidays - "Christmas at home, Easter in the streets." Works for me. One of the Spaniards from my French class asked me, "As an American, does it scare you to see the penitents [the name they give the people who wear the traditional costumes in the Holy Week processions] walking down the street, since you live with the KKK in the US?" "No!" I replied. "Of course not." That said, it was strange. Intellectually, I know the two have very little in common (the exact origin isn't really known, but some suggest that the costumes have their roots in the Spanish Inquisition), but they are intimidating nonetheless.My program here has its office on one of the main plazas in Granada, and so we had unas tapitas while we watched the Maunday Thursday processions. [Side note - here, every day of Holy Week is referred to as Holy Whatever, so Holy Monday, Holy Tuesday, etc. Maunday Thursday, "maunday" being a corruption of an Old French verb "to beg," comes from a tradition in England when the king washed and gave alms to a number of poor people on Holy Thursday, and has little to do with anything else.] There are a number of different processions here, and each has its own day: one is a "gypsy" procession which descends from the mountains, another is a silent procession in which the penitents walk through the streets at midnight, barefoot and bound by chains, but all have several things in common. Each procession is put on by a cofradia, a "brotherhood" of men who sponsor the icon which will be paraded through the streets, and who practice all year (by carrying cinderblocks) to support the massive weight of these things over several hours - the largest icons can be supported by over 80 men. Usually, a Virgin and Jesus appear in each procession, and the themes of the processions change throughout the week, to tell the story of Jesus' capture and crucifixion through the diorama-like processional platforms. The processions all take different routes, but they all end up in front of the town hall and the cathedral at some point, and stop frequently. In the stops, children run up to the penitents and collect wax from their candles, which is made into large balls. Another option the kids have, in addition to the thrilling pastime of collecting wax, is to run up to a costumed participant and scream, "Give me some candy, Penitent!" This is an acceptable request, apparently, but to me is hilarious.This happened to be a special year in Granada for Holy Week - the 100th anniversary of the first official processions was celebrated by repeating all of the processions from the entire week on Holy Saturday. While very cool, this all made navigating the city, especially in taxis, nearly impossible. My mom and I were lucky enough to stumble into the cathedral at one point, where many of the platforms were kept before or after their respective processions. These things are unbelievably detailed, and drip with gold, silver, mountains of flowers and, sometimes, trees.

It was phenomenal to see my mom, and it was great to finally be able to show her around the city where I've been living. It's hard to compress the week into the blog, but some highlights: we stayed one night inside the Alhambra, in the monastery-cum-hotel where Queen Isabela was first buried; we had dinner with my old host mom, where I translated for almost three hours; we rented a car and saw the breathtaking natural park in Cabo de Gata, a strange combination of desert and beach; we got hopelessly lost in said rental car, despite the useless GPS system, on the way to our hotel amongst never-ending greenhouses, on unpaved "roads," when we finally stopped and asked a toothless shepherd for directions, when he laughed at me and told me we'd never find our way out of there - we almost didn't; we finally arrived at our hotel in Mojácar, a beachside town built on a mountain with sweeping views of the Mediterranean.

All in all, it was amazing to see her. Since then, I've been back at class, to a solar power research station with a group of Spanish kids, and as of today, back from the Alpujarra, the gorgeous mountain region near Granada where our program heads each semester. This time, instead of losing power and being snowed-in at our hotel, we hiked in a wintry-mix for two hours, even though it was 50 and dry all day down in Granada. Still, I had a great time. I've been busy, but pretty happy. Sorry this post is such a hodgepodge of thoughts - I'll try to keep this more up-to-date! Stay well - Tom

Genève or Ginebra... what language do I speak again?

Things here in southern Spain have been beautiful - once we got through the hell of the worst weather they've had here in 30 years, the sun came out, the trees started blossoming, and the 75-degree temperatures led me outside to read while stretched out luxuriously on marble fountains in the shade of palm trees. Two weeks ago I headed to the beach, in reality to the only beach I ever made it to last semester, called Almuñecar. The outing, an easy, one-day thing, turned into an ordeal when we missed our bus back because the schedule I picked up in the station that morning was horribly out of date, and we were forced to stay in a hotel. Had we planned this, it could have been a great evening, but we checked into the hotel at 9:00 PM on a Sunday, badly sunburned, with no toiletries or extra clothes, and with early classes the following morning. Being March, the town was not in its high-season, and we got a great room with a balcony with sweeping views of the Mediterranean. Not that we could actually see it. We checked in when it was dark, and attempted to leave the following morning at 5:30, trying to make our classes. This would have been fine, had the elevator not been turned off and the stairwells locked. We panicked a bit, and contemplated jumping off of our fourth-floor balcony until around 6:00, when the elevator began working and the stairwells were opened by a very grumpy receptionist. Apparently no one works in the hotel during the night, so everything is locked up, and no one has ever heard of fire codes - thank God I didn't have any desire to get a hamburger from room service, because it wasn't going to happen. Besides being trapped on the set of The Shining, the funniest moment of the evening came when my friend Tess opened the bathroom door wearing only a towel, covered in welts from her sunburn and practically crying, the result of the shower-head leaping out of its mount, drenching the room in boiling hot water. Tess had panicked and was trying to get out of the shower when she knocked down the shower curtain and its pole, which lay in a heap, propped up on the sink and surrounded by about an inch of water.modeling the hat I convinced Tess to buy for the next beach outing; considering the sunburn I had the last time, I might keep it for myself

As beautiful as it's been here, I was feeling antsy again in Granada, and decided that I had to put an end to the sunshine and warm temperatures, so this past weekend I headed to Switzerland. I went to meet up with a friend from Bates who studies in Fribourg, and my friend Curstin from my program last semester decided to hop a plane and meet us both in Geneva. There's a train station integrated with the Geneva airport, so I went up to the ticket window to ask, in French, for a train to Fribourg. "Fry-berg?" asked the woman. "Yes," I replied. "Well, hold on. Where are you traveling, Germany? Or are you staying in Switzerland?" I had to think a minute - Switzerland is one of those crazy countries with borders all over the place. There are four official languages in Switzerland - German, French, Italian, and Romansch - and everyone speaks English. The most common language of any given town is based on it's proximity to the surrounding countries. Geneva, for example, is across the lake from France, and so falls into the French-speaking section of the country, though everyone there is tri-lingual. My friend's city, as it turns out, is divided into French- and German-speaking sections along the river which cuts through it. Anyway. "I'm staying in Switzerland," I hesitantly replied. "Oh, well then you want 'Free-bur,'" instructed the woman, using the town's French pronunciation. "You must know, 'Fry-berg' is in Germany."

After finally making it there and meeting Daniella on the platform, we headed off to eat a wine and cheese fondue (which, in Switzerland, is served just with bread and potatoes - what else could you need?) for dinner with a half-bottle of wine, all payed for by Daniella's nifty dining-services vouchers. I eat fried balls of fat on a daily basis, and this girl has her pick of the dining hall or any of five restaurants for every meal. I was put up for the night in an unused dorm room in a beautiful, modern residence hall with gorgeous views, towel-warmers, exposed beams, leather lounge furniture, and beds which tilt themselves up at the touch of a button for more comfortable late-night reading. Around ten the next morning, after a quick tour through the town, we headed for Geneva aboard a double-decker train, where we sipped coffee on a curved couch while reading the International Herald Tribune and watching the lakes, chalets, and mountains whiz by. We knew we had arrived in Geneva when we saw the peak of Mont Blanc poke through the buildings from across the lake. I'm telling you, the Europeans get some things right.
Fribourg's old town
the view from my dorm room - doesn't have anything on my pedestrian walkway
Mont Blanc with the knobby trees which are all over Geneva

We didn't have big plans for the weekend, and in reality, we saw very little of the city. It was freezing cold there with one heck of a wind, and I had brought only my lightweight jacket - a big mistake, considering where I was coming from. The Jet d'Eau, the massive fountain in the middle of Lac Léman (or Lake Geneva, depending on whom you ask), more or less the symbol of the city, wasn't running, and it was frankly just too cold to do much lounging around outside. On Saturday we made it to the Patek Philippe Museum, the museum of perhaps the most exclusive watch manufacturer in a city known for watches - these things start around $50,000. It was probably the most touristy thing we did, and was well worth it. I saw, in addition to some simply beautiful timepieces, two watches owned by Queen Victoria, and the most complicated watch in the world, with some 24 functions, not that I could tell you what any of them are.

We also went to a flea market in a residential area of the city, and spent a lot of time in cafés - no one wanted to be outside. Friday afternoon was spent at the Hotel d'Angleterre, one of the most exclusive hotels in the city, and the site of one of Michael Jackson's famous baby-dangling spectacles. Daniella had done her research and discovered that this hotel served the best high-tea in the city. Why I ate lunch before this, I'm not entirely sure, but I managed to stuff in every bite, a goal I had set for myself after finding out how much this thing was going to cost. We were shown into the elegant, art deco Windows Restaurant, where we were seated in front of several bay windows overlooking the lake and Mont Blanc. I've never been a big tea drinker, though I always love a good high-tea, and this was no problem at Windows - I had the choice between a normal high-tea, a coffee-themed "high-tea," or a chocolate version. Clearly, I needed little time to decide here, though I asked the waiter if I might substitute the hot chocolate for coffee; I thought all that chocolate might be too much. "Well," said the waiter, "we can do as you wish, but personally, I think it would be a dommage (a shame) not to have the chocolate. It takes fifteen minutes to prepare, but I think you might enjoy it." He had sold me.

I have never eaten so much chocolate in my life. It was actually embarrassing, and entirely gluttonous. While we waited for the drinks, we were brought slices of cake - the girls tea cake, mine a thick, heavy flour-less chocolate torte. Then came the chocolate. Thinner than "Spanish" hot chocolate but much, much richer, it had just a hint of cinnamon and spices. Unbelievable. This is to say nothing of the four waiters it took to simultaneously bring out the food on two massive tiers. I'll let the pictures fill you in on the rest.yes, that's three tiers of food there, on top of my pad thai for lunch. the best part might have been the thickest, richest whipped cream I've ever tasted - or maybe the mousse... it's all such a blur...

The meal was just coming to a close when a dark-skinned, single woman walked in, wearing huge, mirrored aviator glasses, and spoke to our waiter in slightly-accented French. "Excuse me, would it be too much trouble if I sat on the other side of the restaurant, by myself?" As she made her way to the other wing of the room to sit with her back to us, I continued to stare. She never once took her glasses off, but we had all already come to the same conclusion. "Good Lord!" I hissed. "That's Halle Berry!" I suppose one must expect these things when one dines at the kinds of hotels where Michael Jackson makes a spectacle of himself. Yes... quite.

But really, how cool is that?!

the restaurant was beautiful, too, and had Murano glass chandeliers and the heaviest chairs I've ever encountered

On the way out of the hotel, we walked by the hotel next-door, the Four Seasons. What, you might wonder, would be parked out front, to make me completely ignore the Aston Martin and Land Rover sitting neglected at its side? One of the ugliest cars I can think of, but also one of the most expensive, and something I never thought I'd see outside of a magazine."[Expletive!]" I yelled. "That's a Bugatti Veyron!" The car, a recent reincarnation of a famous Italian manufacturer from the '30s, is worth an obscene 1.5 million dollars, with no options. It goes up a few hundred thousand if you want the Hermès leather. It's the fastest production car in the world, and, if I'm not mistaken, the most expensive. "That's what I just said to my wife!" said the American man walking in front of us. Welcome to Geneva.

The tea and the car foreshadowed the rest of the trip, which was essentially a competition between the three of us to see who could liquidate his or her bank account the fastest. The one "cheap" meal of the trip was at a restaurant we discovered on the New York Time's Frugal Traveler blog, Chez Ma Cousine On y Mange du Poulet, or, At My Cousin's House, We Eat Chicken. For 14 francs, we each had half a roast chicken, a salad, and a mound of rosemary roasted potatoes. That, a bottle of wine, and a vanilla bean covered tarte tartin (caramelized apple torte) was the best, and cheapest, meal of the trip.

I was pretty happy after that meal, and enjoyed basking in Old Europe

Saturday night we had decided to go to a few bars. You must know that Daniella is from New York's Upper West, and has very discerning tastes. Not that I don't, but put the two of us together, and things like that high-tea happen. Combine that with Geneva's insane pricing and international diplomats, and you've got our evening. The night started out well enough. I had a cheeseburger (with the best cheese I've ever had on a burger; oh those Swiss...) and a coke at a cute, local place. Then we went to the Alhambar, apparently one of the most popular bars in the city, doubly interesting since it was a play on the Alhambra, the castle here in Granada. The 16 franc drinks there were shocking, but less so when we thought of the exchange rate (ever so slightly in our favor) and the fact that we were in a very expensive city. Then our final stop of the evening, where we each had one drink. At 21 francs each, it was all we could do. The lion statues outside, the 12-foot-tall plastic tubes filled with columns of fire, and the giant Russian bouncer were all pretty intimidating, but we made it inside to the dark, gorgeous bar, where two huge, marble samurais stood frozen in a sword fight. We snagged a table in the corner, and were instantly greeted by a gorgeous blonde waitress. We noticed that she seemed a little preoccupied, which was explained when our neighbors were seated at the reserved table next to us. One large man, one very skinny one, each dressed in dark grey silk suits with glimmering red silk shirts underneath and tiny, blue-tinted glasses, and a well-dressed, businesslike woman were escorted in by two hulking bodyguards who stayed close-by all evening. The blonde waitress rushed over with a huge bucket of ice, inside of which were nestled three bottles of Absolut vodka. Daniella turned to me and whispered, "the Russians just showed up." This was funny until they actually started speaking Russian. As we pondered this and slowly sipped our drinks, two very tan older men walked in, one in a khaki suit, one dressed in white linen. Each had on about eight gold rings and wore three or four golden chains around his neck. Before I could make a joke about it, they ordered in Italian. As the night progressed, our friends from the table next to us and the well-dressed Italians were escorted to a quieter section of the bar, where they stayed until we left. "We're gonna read about this arms deal in the paper tomorrow," whispered Curstin. We also saw an enormous, corpulent man with a stunningly beautiful 20-something who left in a chauffeured BMW, and several very dark-skinned women dressed in slinky dresses in traditional African prints who slid up to the bar where they sat with several Middle Eastern men. It was truly international. As we left, the early-'90s dance music (which is great - it's an instant party!) changed into pulsating Middle Eastern lounge music. The middle of the bar had been cleared where several patrons were dancing with a scarf, when a waitress brought out four sticks which looked like rolled-up newspaper. She proceeded to set them on fire and hand them to the dancers, where they began to shoot out green flames. It was an experience.

cute, old building

All in all, I had a great time, though I wish I had spent less money. Geneva is a clean, beautiful city, and Switzerland definitely seems like a place I need to explore more throughly. As always on these travels, my favorite experiences aren't the crazy, James Bond-like bars or the expensive meals, but rather the local, low-key moments, like my "cousin's" place for chicken, or the quirky little tea shop where I breakfasted one morning on fresh scones and cheese-filled croissants while seated in an antique, wooden Ferris-wheel carriage. I'm now back in Granada, and, at two in the morning, have realized that I still have French to study for tomorrow. Until next time.

Almond Trees and Orange Groves

Give this one a minute to load with all the pictures!

This post is well over-due, and normally I would attempt some sort of excuse like, "gosh, things have been busy over here!," though the opposite is the case, and that's precisely why I haven't written. Upon my return from Rome, I experienced the wave of melancholy I had anticipated, knowing Granada well but no longer having my friends here. My room initially helped to make up for the lack of people, what with its own bathroom and all I never had any reason to leave, but my soft, noisy mattress through which I can feel the boards of my "bed," the bars on my window which overlooks the underside of a pedestrian walkway and a brick wall, and the obnoxious, screaming Portuguese girls down the hall all conspire to make it less than perfect. Had I been on the other side of my building, I would have had sweeping, southerly views of the entire city, the mountain range in the distance, and the Baroque, 16th century Monasterio de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, but who really needs that when there are plenty of rotting clementines to enjoy just outside my window? I can't complain about the bathroom, though.
I needed some flowers in my room to brighten things up. I keep my lights on even at noon.


The views which my friends have out their windows, and which I at least enjoy on my walk up the hill.

In Spain, it is most common for students to live with their parents while attending college; most of the time, this means going to the school closest to their town and commuting every day if it's close enough. If it's a bit of a trip, many students live in a residence hall during the week, and then head for home on the weekends. Because of this, the school's cafeteria, where I am subjected to two plates of unidentifiable fried meat once a day, is closed on weekends and holidays. This leaves me on my own with my microwave for dinner, though, inexplicably, there are rooms here with full kitchens - thanks, Arcadia. I've become well versed in microwave omelet preparation, and have gotten pretty creative. A normal dinner might be a plate of scrambled eggs with avocado, mushrooms and cherry tomatoes, or perhaps a salad with honey mustard dressing, warm goat cheese and chopped pear, with microwaved pumpkin bisque. This, however, all pales in comparison to Irma's cooking last semester, when I rarely felt the need to offset my consumption of fried fat at lunch with nothing but vegetables at night. It's odd to me that, for the same amount of money, I had three square meals a day last semester, when I'm now forced to spend about 30 euro per week on food, not to mention the six meals I don't get on weekends - it's getting expensive! I do like the faux feeling of independence I get from cooking for myself, and I've decided that one of life's little pleasures is stopping by a local bakery every day to pick up a soft, warm loaf of bread; I eat about three a day.
A typical dinner - sandwich, soup, and The Office. Hey, it keeps me company when my friend Tess isn't around to corroborate my complaints about food and our program.
Recently, though, we've been getting more creative. Our most recent discovery is strawberries, melted goat cheese, and honey. On anything.

About two days after I got back from Rome, I found myself entirely alone in the dorm. The contingent from my program was away in Madrid, and none of the Spanish kids are ever around on weekends. Because of this, in a burst of spontaneity, I decided on Thursday night that I would leave the next day to visit my friend Steve in Oxford. My spontaneity was quashed a bit by the fact that there is essentially no internet in my dorm room, so I walked further up the mountain to the steps of the beautiful orthodontia building (the only building on campus not in the style of 1960's dictatorship and fascism), where I used the wifi at midnight and in the drizzling rain to purchase my plane tickets. It was great to see Steve, and I would not have made it through the weekend here by myself after two weeks of isolation in Italy, but I did have to endure the taunts of the three drunken Spaniards left in the dorm who yelled something out their window about how pathetic it was that I was searching for wifi at twelve at night when I should be out getting drunk. I agreed with them.

I made a stop at platform 9 and 3/4 in King's Cross on the way home with my friend Curstin. Anyone? Rach? Harry Potter - get it?

Thankfully, the weather pattern which had been hanging over Granada since I left finally broke after I returned from London; the temperatures soared to the mid sixties, it was sunny every day, and everything was a lush green from the rain. La Cartuja, the huge hill on top of which you'll find my dorm, used to be the orchard for the monastery after which it's named, so it is currently pleasantly scented with almond blossoms and oranges, which almost makes up for the nearly impossible trek up here. The weekend of the third week in March marked carnival season here in Spain (and in Italy, for that matter). The biggest celebration of the historically pagan week of drunkenness, revelry and excess before lent takes place in the coastal city of Cádiz, where I travelled with a bus-full of drunken, Halloween-like costumed Spaniards and my new group of friends from my residence hall. Cádiz is beautiful, and seems to me like it would merit a return trip when the city doesn't look like New Orleans after Katrina hit. The main idea of carnival, at least originally, was to dress up so that no one could be recognized, and mock the Church and the government. It was also an opportunity for the villagers of Europe to revert to some of their pagan traditions before being whipped back into shape by Christianity. This year, for example, some of the most popular costumes involved men dressed like nuns with necklaces of phallic symbols - my theory is that these men thought they were being clever, but really had no idea how they played into the traditional concept of carnival that's been around since the 15th century, but I can't prove anything. Our plan, the same as everyone else's, was to get to the city around four in the afternoon, spend the day on the beach, watch some parades, drink in the streets, and stay up until we got on the bus back to Granada at nine the following morning - apparently, sleep and the booking of a clean, comfortable hotel is not a concept which exists during carnival. Cádiz' carnival is especially famous for the city's comparsas, groups of men who practice singing for months to parody governmental figures and recent news, which we were all eager to witness.

My enjoyment of the evening sank with the setting sun; the beach was gorgeous, somewhere around 70 degrees and overlooked the Straight of Gibraltar, and the sunset there was absolutely spectacular. I wish I could say that the rest of the evening was a blur, but it dragged along with spectacular slowness. The comparsas made no sense to any of us because they sang in regionalized Spanish about issues we had never heard of, the temperatures plummeted, and the cafes in which we took refuge all closed around three in the morning. That left us out on the drenched streets, though oddly it hadn't been raining, leaving us to ponder just what interesting mix of bodily fluids and alcohol was soaking into our socks. We wandered the streets avoiding the shattered glass until the busses finally opened up at around eight, and I vowed I would never, ever go to a carnival again in Spain. I understand that my friend who spent carnival in Venice had a great time, though!
Before...
...well, you get the idea...

What else is new? I went skiing again, which was, frankly, amazing. I won't bore you with the details again of the stunning views, but, really, you wouldn't believe them.

I got smart and rented a helmet this time, mainly because the girl from Sweden with whom I was skiing convinced me to do the equivalent of US black diamond pistes. They were fun, but the helmet was a good idea.

I joined another chorus, this one with the vast resources for an accompanist and actual piano. There are about 75 members, though no one is under about 30, all of whom are pretty good. It's just what I was looking for last semester, though they meet from eight till eleven on Friday nights - I worked very hard to have one class on Thursday and none on Friday, so we'll see how that works out. Currently, and hopefully finally, I'm taking Introduction to Romantic Filology, basically the comparative study of Romantic languages through historical texts - I think it's my favorite class; Geolinguistics, which has something to do with dialect maps and linguistic atlases; Spanish Dialectology, which is what it sounds like; and French. I'm glad I've got the opportunity to take classes which would never be offered at Bates, even if they are for students already finished with the equivalent of their Masters'. At least it's a challenge. I'm still tutoring the kids in English; they're great, though it's about time I look for another book for the younger one. I'm going over there twice a week at the moment, which is good for the money, but a huge pain now that the bus stop is a 40 minute walk, plus the 40 minute ride, each way. I have a language "intercambio" with a physics professor from the university - it basically means that I meet him for lunch or coffee and we talk for half the time in Spanish, half in English, which has been helpful. And, I might start volunteering at a hospital, but that's only if I'm feeling particularly anxious to overload myself.

I think that's about it. I'm going to put up a random sampling of my pictures from Italy, since I finally got them onto my computer. Stay warm!

Il Duomo, gorgeous cathedral in Milan.


Gift-wrapped, cold lasagna.




Venice, wonderful, ridiculous eight-euro cappuccino.

Pre-dinner "snack" in Rome.
Climbing the dome at St. Peter's Basilica.
St. Peter's tomb.

Coliseum.


The Roman Forum and the Palatine.

My favorite site in Rome.

Rome Recap

Henry James, one of my favorite authors, wrote a short story titled Daisy Miller: A Study, which tells of a young American woman who travels to Rome with her family towards the end of the 19th century. Although members of the upper-crust of American society, the Europeans can’t believe how tacky these people are: they’re on a first-name basis with their valet, and Daisy’s mother allows her daughter to flit about the city entirely un-chaperoned, meeting natives and soaking up the local culture, something which, frankly, is a little overly flirtatious, thank you very much. Towards the end of the story, Daisy is invited to take a walk around the city at night, ending up at the Coliseum; there was a time when it was open to visitors at all hours – not so easy for me. As Daisy stands there in the center of the enormous stadium (did you know it could seat up to 50,000 people and had a retractable roof, bathrooms, concession stands and running water up to its third floor?), she is reminded about “Roman Fever,” the euphemistic term given to malaria, which was problematic in the city until the 20th century. Being young and impetuous, Daisy stays and enjoys basking in the most emblematic symbol of Europe’s ancient history and culture. Unfortunately, Daisy falls ill several days later and eventually dies. The symbolism implied here is that Daisy, the young American who challenges the accepted social norms in Europe, is destroyed by their weighty history and is unable to overcome them. Not the most uplifting short story, especially, perhaps, for an American traveling in Rome, but it’s chock-full of symbolism on a whole bunch of levels, and I love it.

Luckily for me, I did not have an experience similar to Daisy’s, though it was an amazing feeling to be able to stand in front of the Coliseum at night, with no tourists or souvenir-hawkers in sight, and soak in just how amazing it was to be in Rome. The city was founded somewhere around 800 BC – though settlements at least 200 years older have been found there – by the sons of the wolf-princess Rhea Silvia and the god Mars, Romulus and Remus. At least that’s what the legend says… and we do know that Romulus was the first King of Rome, though I’m not sure how his mother would feel about being referred to as a she-wolf. The first night I was there, I spent my time walking around hitting the obligatory sights, like the Spanish Steps (basically just a huge set of steps up to a church which young Romans find ideal for public displays of affection and pot-smoking), the Pantheon (Pan- meaning "all" and -theon meaning "gods"), an ironically re-designated ancient Roman temple which is now a Catholic basilica, and the Trevi Fountain, which provided a principal plot point for the movie Three Coins in the Fountain. The tradition goes that whoever throws a coin into the fountain will return to Rome; I couldn’t risk looking any more pathetic than I already did by tossing money into the fountain alone, but I liked Rome enough to head back someday, regardless. You must realize, though, that by fountain I really mean Disney-quality animatronic-like Pirates of the Caribbean backdrop, complete with colossal Neptune riding tamed seahorses. Again, bear with me until I can get some pictures up here.

My first full day in Rome was taken up at the Vatican, the seat of the Catholic Church and the smallest sovereign state in the world (though I wondered how it would stack up next to Mashantucket, CT). I started out at the Vatican Museums, and I really can’t describe what it was like to be there. Not only was the entrance fee practically extortion, even after my student discount, but I was constantly overwhelmed by the enormity of the palaces into which the Vatican’s treasures are stuffed. The most telling example of this was when I began walking down a series of never-ending hallways, sparkling with gold from every surface except for the ceilings, which were covered in priceless frescoes by the likes of Michelangelo and Rafael; honestly, I must have walked down the same hallway for about 20 minutes. On either side of the hallway are ancient chests and wardrobe-like furnishings, which open up to reveal the small relics, maps, and personal effects of dead popes, cardinals, bishops, monsignors… the list goes on. In one lay four rings from the 14th century, each with a stone bigger than my fist – there is no way I would have been able to lift my hand off the ground while wearing one of these things. Through the next doorway was an entire room full of these chests that simply weren’t open, leaving the visitor to guess which huge collection of Church wealth lay in seclusion, away from the people who paid for it to begin with. I don’t want to get political, but despite the beauty and professional layout of the museum, I left it feeling disgusted by the amount of wealth the Church has amassed over the years while people still go hungry. But anyway. The highlight was undoubtedly the Sistine Chapel, the 15th century room into which the papal conclave is locked to elect a new pope, with ceiling frescoes designed by Michelangelo. (Side note – did you know that the word fresco comes from the rapid method of painting on the wet - fresh - stucco of ceilings, the artist needing to finish the design before the stucco dries? A little gem I picked up from the Aer Lingus special on Michelangelo.) As much as I was looking forward to my visit to the chapel, and as indescribably beautiful and ingenious as the paintings are, I was a little let down when I actually got in there. I practically had to sprint through the museum in front of hordes of tourists with guides using megaphones, and by the time I got there, emerging from the basement’s dimly-lit stairwells only about half an hour after the museum opened, the chapel was already packed. It’s a strange thing to be in the presence of the most recognizable piece of art in the world – I don’t think it could possibly live up to the hype. Much smaller than I had anticipated it being, pretty far away (it being on the ceiling), and only one of a series of nine frescoes depicting scenes from Genesis, the big portrait of Adam and God touching fingertips was only a small part of the room. I almost liked the massive work behind the altar (The Last Judgment, also by Michelangelo) even better. It’s a great piece, commissioned by a pope in the throws of the Protestant revolution to encourage good Catholics not to be tempted from the Faith. The demons were particularly amazing, as I’m pretty sure I’ve seen masks hanging in Wal-Mart just like some of their faces.

After seeing the museums, I went around the corner to St. Peter’s Basilica, the largest/second largest Basilica in the world, depending on whom you ask. If you read my Milan entry, you know that I was blown away by Il Duomo, the cathedral there; this tops it. And how could it not? With a capacity of 60,000 worshipers, the basilica was consecrated in 326 AD on the exact spot where St. Peter was martyred, a former Roman stadium. It was later rebuilt in the 16th century to its current form, and a spectacular form it is. With a total height of 449 feet from the floor to the top of the dome designed by Michelangelo, the basilica represents one of the most holy sites in Christianity, the high altar dedicated to St. Peter and built directly over his (supposed) grave out of bronze melted down from the portico of the Pantheon, and only accessible to the current pope. Very cool. I went up to the dome, got a little dizzy looking down to the beautiful marble floor from 500 feet up there, and then went outside for some of the most spectacular views of Rome you can imagine. Getting up there was a bit of a feat, as the staircases are curved within the dome, so the walls on either side of you slant in towards the staircase as you walk up it in a spiral. But it was absolutely worth it. I also thought the massive list of popes dating back to St. Peter was pretty cool – all popes are “descendants” of Peter, the first pope - and I listened to John Rutter’s Gloria (a very majestic choral piece) the whole time I was walking around the church, which set the scene nicely.

That night I spent some time walking around Via Venetto, the street on which you’ll find all the five-star hotels from the 19th century. Even though I wasn’t staying in one of them, it was fun to think that I was in the same area where the likes of Henry James or Audrey Hepburn would have been on their own trips to Rome. And, in the interest of full-disclosure, I did spend far too much money on a pair of cashmere-lined deerskin gloves from a custom glove shop there; my other gloves had begun to fall apart when I lost one of them, so this seemed like an opportune time for my one and only souvenir-like purchase in Italy. I’m pretty sure they’re a half-size too big and were made by sweatshop workers, but they are wonderful. Just up the road from the likes of Harry’s Bar and Café du Paris on the Via (see La Dolce Vita) is the Villa Borghese and its surrounding park, dating back to the 17th century. I spent the whole morning of the next day there after briefly stopping in a church whose Capuchin monks decorated the entirety of their burial ground with the bones of their deceased members. The light fixtures, crown molding, strange mummified child hanging from the ceiling are all made out of bones, and there are even a few mummified or skeletal monks standing around dressed in their original robes to add to the mood. I got my dose of the macabre in for the year, anyway. The park was lovely and reminded me a lot of Oxford, which made sense after I discovered that it was designed to reflect English naturalism. The best part of the park is probably the actual Villa, which houses the Galleria Borghese. The most difficult and complex museum I’ve ever been lucky enough to sneak my way into, I had to call twelve hours in advance to make a ticket reservation and show up to the museum 30 minutes early for a security check and to strip myself of everything I was carrying. The villa was built by Cardinal Scipione Borghese as his private residence and sculpture museum, and when the mansion was converted into a museum, they needed to change little of the interior. Known as one of the best museums in Rome, it is home to some of the most spectacular pieces of sculpture I’ve ever seen. Almost every room on the bottom floor is centered around a sculpture retelling a scene from a classical mythological story, many of which were completed by Bernini in the 17th century. My personal favorite was without a doubt Apollo and Daphne; the god Apollo lusted after the nymph Daphne and, wanting to remain pure, she asked her father to change her into something to protect her from the pursuing god. Just as Apollo's hand reaches the nymph's stomach, her father, Peneus, transforms his daughter into a laurel tree. Bernini captured the exact moment that Apollo's hand reaches Daphne, though where he touches on her stomach has already turned into delicately brushed bark, her whipping hair and fingertips sprouting leaves and tiny branches. (This picture is courtesy Artchive.com)


My other favorite was also by Bernini, The Rape of Persephone. Long story short, the god of the underworld, Pluto, drags Persephone, sorta-kinda the goddess in charge of earth fertility, down to his lair. Bernini shows us Persephone struggling away from her captor, his hands digging into her soft flesh. I stared at this for a good ten minutes without moving, and there were moments when I forgot that this was just a sculpture. Look at the detail! (Both pictures from Wikipedia)



The museum also had an impressive collection of ancient Roman sculpture, but I was more drawn-in by the stuff from the Renaissance. I've decided I'm a bigger fan of the marble stuff than I am of paintings.

The next day was all about the Coliseum, the Palatine (basically a posh, ancient Roman suburb), and the Roman Forum, the most famous of the ancient Roman shopping areas in the city. These were very, very cool, though perhaps the most exciting moment of my day was when I understood the announcement made to the crowd waiting to get into the Coliseum (exclusively in Italian, for whatever reason) that anyone could skip the line by paying an extra four euro for a guided tour. I was interested in a guided tour anyway, so I did just that. However, the best part was when I pretended to be a Spanish citizen to get a discounted rate on the entrance, and spoke to the Italian guy at the ticket window, very convincingly, if I do say so myself, in heavily accented English. The guided tour, which my guidebook said to avoid because they are often so crowded, had four people on it, and I learned much more than I would have by wandering around acknowledging that everything was very beautiful but not really understanding any of it. This was exactly what happened at the Palatine and the Forum, which are kind of like big parks in the middle of the city strewn with the ruins of old houses and shopping malls. It was amazing, but I really could have used an audio guide.

Despite being in these incredibly historic surroundings, the best part of my day was when I stumbled upon a tiny, local bakery and sucked down a great cappuccino and had them pack me a gorgeous veggie sandwich on warm focaccia bread and a bagfull of those weird Italian fried cookie-like things which are always covered in confectioner's sugar as a picnic lunch, all for five euro; just in case you were wondering, those cookies are called frap. This I took with me up to the top of the Capitoline Hill, one of the seven hills of Rome, the seat of Roman government, and the name from which we get the English word capitol, and had a great lunch sitting in a plaza designed by Michelangelo while basking in the sun in 55 degree weather, all with sweeping vistas of the Forum. There were no tourists about and the museums were closed, which really added to the experience. I came to realize over the course of the trip that the quiet moments I wasn't expecting, away from the actual "must-see sights" were what I enjoyed the most. That held true the next day, too, when I went to check out the Old Appian Way, that famous, perfectly straight highway connecting Rome to Brindisi, begun back in the 4th century BC. I took a subway out of the city to a stop which dumped my in the middle of a residential area of huge apartment buildings which reminded me a lot of Granada. I wandered around there for a while, and had a great coffee and pastry in a local bakery, after standing in there awkwardly for ten minutes while pretending to be on my cell phone speaking in Spanish, so that I could figure out what it was I had to say to whom in order to get my food - it was a pretty complex process, but it was worth it. Then, one street over, I saw the 6,000 acre Regional Park of the Appia Antica open up before me. I wasn't expecting this at all, and it was amazing. The park is, in reality, made up of the private estates of ancient villas built along the Appian Way in Roman times, so horses, goats, and chickens still roam wild, there are lakes and ponds, ancient walls and temples, crumbling tombs, and lots and lots of joggers. You must remember, this is all within 20 seconds of a subway stop! I liked the park so much that I decided to go back to my hotel, change into my running stuff, and head back for a more thorough exploration. This time I actually found my way to the Appian Way, which is a cobblestone street just about big enough for a Mini-Cooper. I loved it. I was out for my run for about four hours that sunny Sunday afternoon, occasionally walking through free-access archaeological sights or rolling, (unbelievably) flowering public gardens in the 60 degree, spring-like weather. (Picture from Wikipedia) It was free, it was beautiful, and it was educational. What more could I ask for? It was one of the best afternoons of the trip.

That about does it for my Italy trip. The last day in the city I really just bummed around, finding my way into the former Jewish ghetto at one point, which reminded me of the narrow, winding streets of Spain, lighted by gas lamps. The next day, I was off to the airport yet again. And now I'm in Granada. The weather is as bad here as it's been in 30 years, or so they tell me, but at least the temperatures haven't dipped much below 40 degrees. Even with the rain here, I wouldn't trade it for what everyone at home is dealing with. I'll fill you in on the goings-on around here once they get interesting.